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Americans
Prefer 'Safer' Older Drugs
 Concerned
by recently discovered dangers of relatively new arthritis and
depression drugs, most Americans would prefer a drug that has been
on the market at least a decade, according to a new survey.
“Seven
out of 10 American consumers would prefer a drug that had been on
the market for 10 years or more over newer drugs, even if the
co-pays were equal,” according to the survey of 1,092 insured
adults sponsored by pharmacy benefit manager Medco Health Solutions.
Find
out more specifics of this study at the MSNBC
website.
'Pocket
Pets' Salmonella Risk
 Furry
"pocket pets" like hamsters, mice and rats have sickened
up to 30 people in at least 10 states with dangerous multidrug-resistant
bacteria, health officials are warning.
It
is the first known outbreak of salmonella illness tied to such pets
and reveals a previously unknown public health risk, officials said
in a report released Thursday.
Many
of the victims were children; six were hospitalized for vomiting,
fever and severe diarrhea. Some passed the illness to others. The
germ they had was resistant to five drugs spanning several classes
of antibiotics.
Read
complete coverage of this new health concern at the CBS
News website.
CDC
Pushes New Mosquito Repellents
After
years of promoting the chemical DEET as the best defense against
West Nile-bearing mosquitoes, the government for the first time is
recommending the use of two other insect repellents.
Repellents
containing the chemical picaridin or the oil of lemon eucalyptus
offer "long-lasting protection against mosquito bites,"
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, adding that
repellents with DEET remain on the agency's recommendation list.
Read
CNN's
complete coverage on this issue to learn more about the CDC's
decision to expand their repellent recommendations.
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Hearing
Give Look into Vioxx Marketing 
What
Merck & Co. calls good salesmanship -- emphasizing the positive in
selling the painkiller Vioxx -- a Democratic congressman says is
disinformation designed to deflect safety concerns.
The
public got an extraordinary glimpse Thursday into the world of drug
marketing, as lawmakers released confidential Merck documents that
detail how a sales army of 3,000 aggressively pushed the
multibillion-dollar drug before it was pulled from the market last
fall because of heart attack risks.
Learn
more about Merck's sales and behavior practices, as well as
information on the 2,300 lawsuits that have now been filed against the
company at the CNN
website.
More
Older Adults Entering Drug Rehab Centers
 The
face of substance abuse may be growing older.
While
most people entering rehab clinics are still younger adults,
researchers say alcohol and drug abuse presents a growing threat to
America's burgeoning elderly population.
The
number of adults over 55 is expected to mushroom from about 62 million
in 2002 to 75 million by 2010. If current trends continue, researchers
say the number of adults over 50 with substance abuse problems will
double from 2.5 million in 1999 to 5 million in 2020.
Get
more specific information on the reasons for this alarming trend at at
the Fox
News site.
New
Rules for Sperm Donors
 To
the dismay of gay-rights activists, the U.S. government is about to
implement new rules recommending that any man who has engaged in
homosexual sex in the previous five years be barred from serving as an
anonymous sperm donor.
The
Food and Drug
Administration has rejected calls to scrap the provision,
insisting that gay men collectively pose a higher-than-average risk of
carrying the AIDS virus. Critics accuse the FDA of stigmatizing all
gay men rather than adopting a screening process that focuses on
high-risk sexual behavior by any would-be donor, gay or straight.
Learn
more about these rule changes, as well as the controversy surrounding
these new donor recommendations at the CBS
News website.
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