LOS ANGELES (AFP) – Michael Jackson’s death has lifted a veil on the sinister underbelly of fame, with associates of the pop icon hitting out at celebrity-dazzled doctors who funnel powerful narcotics to the stars.

Jackson, who died Thursday aged 50 after collapsing at his home in Beverly Hills, had a long history of prescription drug use, stretching back to 1993 when allegations of child abuse were leveled against him.

Reports that Jackson had been injected with a powerful painkiller by a personal physician shortly before his death triggered speculation that the star had a ready supply of prescription medications.

According to Jackson’s close friend and confidante, new age guru and trained cardiologist Deepak Chopra, the entertainment world is rife with doctors who trade their access to drugs for celebrity.

“There’s a plethora of doctors in Hollywood that are drug peddlers, they are drug pushers,” Chopra told CNN. “They just happen to have a medical license.”

Chopra spoke of a “huge problem” Hollywood had with “celebrity doctors who not only initiate people into the drug experience but then they perpetuate it so that people become dependent on them.

“I think this is something that really should be investigated because it’s a disease,” Chopra added.

“The number-one cause of drug addiction in the world, and particularly in the United States, is not street drugs but medical prescriptions given legally by physicians.”

The fatal alliance of drugs and celebrity has been one of Hollywood’s longest-running narratives, whether the decades-long addiction battle fought by Judy Garland before her death in 1969 aged 47 or recent cases, such as the accidental overdose of Australian actor Heath Ledger in New York in 2008.

The circumstances surrounding Jackson’s demise have meanwhile evoked eerie comparisons with the 2007 death of former Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith.

Smith died of an accidental drug overdose in a hotel in Florida. An autopsy subsequently found a lethal cocktail of several prescription drugs in her body.

Her boyfriend and two doctors are currently facing trial in California, accused of conspiring to provide the platinum blonde sex symbol with prescription drugs.

“These individuals repeatedly and excessively furnished thousands of prescription pills to Anna Nicole Smith, often for no legitimate medical purpose,” California Attorney General Edmund Brown said in March.

The US Drug Enforcement Administration on Friday renewed concerns about rising deaths from misuse of prescription pills.

“Diversion and abuse of prescription drugs are a threat to our public health and safety similar to the threat posed by illicit drugs such as heroin and cocaine,” said Gil Kerlikowske, director of national drug control policy.

Chopra meanwhile revealed he first had an inkling Jackson was receiving drugs from multiple sources following his 2005 acquittal on child-sex charges when the star had stayed at his home.

“At one point, he started asking me for a prescription. He knew I was a physician. I had a license. He asked me for a prescription for a narcotic. And I said what the heck do you want a narcotic prescription for?” Chopra said.

“It suddenly dawned on me that he was already taking these and that he had probably a number of doctors who were giving him these prescriptions.”

Chopra’s concerns appeared to be supported by the former nanny of Jackson’s three children, Grace Rwaramba, who was quoted in British newspapers on Sunday as saying she regularly had to pump the star’s stomach.

The star was addicted to narcotic painkillers, she said in comments reported by The Sunday Times.

“I had to pump his stomach many times. He always mixed so much of it,” said Rwaramba, 42.

“There was one period that it was so bad that I didn’t let the children see him… He always ate too little and mixed too much.”

Technorati Tags: celebrity doctors, drug addiction, medical prescriptions, painkillers, prescription drug, prescription drugs, prescription pills

FRIDAY, June 26 (HealthDay News) — A new drug to treat rheumatoid arthritis reduces joint inflammation in severe cases while causing only mild to moderate side effects, according to a report from the first clinical trial of the drug on humans.

Masitinib, which is being developed by AB Science pharmaceuticals, is supposed to halt the activity of mast cells, a part of the immune system believed to be involved in the start and progression of rheumatoid arthritis.

The results of the French trial, involving 43 people with arthritis that other treatments had failed to help, appears online in Arthritis Research and Therapy.

“We are encouraged from this study that masitinib not only appears to be effective, but that within the first three months of treatment, the worst of its side effects were over, possibly making it suitable for long-term treatment regimens,” one of the researchers, Olivier Hermine, said in a news release from the journal’s publisher. The next step will be placebo-controlled trials, he added.

Technorati Tags: Arthritis Research, Arthritis Therapy, arthritis treatment, Masitinib, rheumatoid arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis drug, rheumatoid arthritis treatment

LONDON (AFP) – Men will be able to buy Viagra on the High Street for the first time instead of going to a doctor after Boots launched a nationwide scheme on Friday.

Stores across the country will sell the erectile dysfunction drugs to men after they undergo a private half-hour consultation with a pharmacist.

Pharmacists will conduct a pre-screening questionnaire, take a medical history and conduct a series of blood tests, including checking glucose, blood pressure and cholesterol levels to rule out a more serious health problem.

The scheme follows a trial at Boots stores in Manchester.

Pharmacist James Longden, who led the trial, said men had travelled from around the country to buy the small blue pills.

“We had men coming not just from the North West but from all over.

“They were really positive about it. Sometimes it can be a bit of an embarrassing subject to talk about and many didn’t know where to turn to for help,” Longden said.

Costing 55 pounds for the initial screening and four tablets, the price will drop to 26.59 pounds for further supplies of four tablets.

Erectile dysfunction affects one in 10 men in Britain and it is estimated that only 10 percent of the estimated 2.3 million men who suffer are being treated.

But research by Boots has indicated that 47 percent of men would prefer to suffer in silence rather than discuss erection problems with anyone.

Patricia Lohr, medical director of the sexual healthcare charity BPAS, said women should also have the convenience of buying drugs from their chemist rather than seeing a doctor.

“It’s fine that men will be able to pick up Viagra alongside their shaving foam at their local pharmacist.

“But why can’t women access effective contraception by the same easy means? The contraceptive pill is safe, effective and used by millions of women worldwide - many more than men who use Viagra.

“A pharmacist can’t even provide a woman with a repeat prescription for the pill - she has to return to the doctor’s surgery time and again.”

Technorati Tags: buy viagra, erectile dysfunction drugs

BASEL, Switzerland (AFP) – Swiss drugs giant Novartis has completed a first batch of swine flu vaccine for pre-clinical trials and aims to make a version available in the fall, the company said.

“Novartis has successfully completed the production of the first batch of influenza A(H1N1) vaccine, weeks ahead of expectations,” the company said in a statement.

The 10-litre batch “will be used for pre-clinical evaluation and testing and is also being considered for use in clinical trials,” it said.

Novartis hopes to start clinical trials in July and “expects licensure in the fall of 2009,” it said.

It added that “more than 30 governments have made requests to Novartis to supply them with influenza A(H1N1) vaccine ingredients.”

The company used cell-based technology to produce the vaccine, a faster method than the traditional technology that uses eggs, according to Novartis.

Novartis received 289 million dollars (206.8 million euros) last month from the US Department of Health and Human Services for the development of the vaccine.

The World Health Organization declared a swine flu pandemic on Thursday, ratcheting up its alert to the maximum level of six.

Swine flu has infected people almost 30,000 people in 75 countries and claimed 144 lives since it was first detected in Mexico in April.

Technorati Tags: Novartis, swine flu, swine flu pandemic, swine flu vaccine

Weight loss and malnutrition are serious threats to patients battling cancer, who can find that their tumors or treatment sap their appetite, cause nausea and other side effects and block absorption the nutrients they do force down. Here are some tips from cancer specialists and dietitians to help:

• Try to eat five or six small meals throughout the day rather than three large ones.
• Cancer patients tend to need more protein than healthy people. Peanut butter crackers, yogurt and fruit, a hard-boiled egg and piece of toast all are good mini-meals.
• Drink between meals, not with them, to avoid filling up on liquid.
• Don’t try your comfort food if you’re vomiting. It may create an aversion.
• Foods high in fat or fiber make nausea last longer.
• White, bland foods tend to help with nausea, such as Cream of Wheat, mashed potatoes, cottage cheese.
• Odors often worsen nausea, and foods served at room temperature rather than warm tend to have milder odors.
• Fresh ginger about 30 minutes before eating also can take the edge off nausea, but not ginger flavoring common in many sodas. A study published last week found ginger capsules work, too.
• Certain cancer medications, particularly painkillers, cause constipation, so keep up the fiber whenever the nausea passes.
• Take special care to stay hydrated when diarrhea strikes. Bananas, rice, applesauce and toast are good options.
• Many patients find foods that once tasted good now taste metallic. Citrus sometimes counters that; try sucking lemon drops, or drinking lemonade with meals, or using citrus-based marinades. Other patients may have a treatment-caused, and correctable, zinc deficiency.
• Tell your doctor about any over-the-counter dietary supplements. Some, such as St. John’s wort, can cause dangerous interactions with numerous anti cancer medications. Even high amounts of acidic vitamin C can worsen stomach problems.
• Staying hydrated and eating foods moistened with sauces and gravies helps dry mouth; doctors also can prescribe an artificial saliva.
• High-protein, high-calorie milkshakes and canned supplements like Ensure help sneak in extra nutrients and are especially helpful for patients with mouth sores. Make your own with whole milk and a few tablespoons of dry milk or protein powder.
• Ask for a consultation with a dietitian who specializes in cancer before you start losing weight. Specially designated cancer centers have dietitians on staff, and insurance may cover other consultations if the doctor orders it. The American Cancer Society’s toll-free hot line — 1-800-ACS-2345 connects patients in the Southeast to dietitians on call, and will find nutrition answers for people elsewhere. To find nearby dietitians, try http://www.eatright.org.
• Look for recipes targeted to cancer patients. The cancer society posts some at http://www.cancer.org, and plans a new cookbook in July.

Technorati Tags: anti cancer medications, Cancer, Cancer nutrition, Cancer nutrition tips, dietary supplements, dietitian, start losing weight

CHICAGO (Reuters) – An experimental asthma treatment that uses heat to reduce airway constriction provided some relief from severe asthma that is poorly controlled with medications, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

They said the Alair device, made by privately held Asthmatx Inc of Sunnyvale, California, cut the rates of extreme asthma attacks by 32 percent and reduced trips to the emergency room by 84 percent in patients with severe asthma.

Patients missed fewer days of work or school because of asthma symptoms and had more symptom-free days compared with people who received a placebo, according to results of the late-stage clinical trial, which was presented at a meeting of the American Thoracic Society in San Diego.

The Alair device uses a thin tube to gently heat the walls of the lung’s air passages, killing off some of the muscle tissue to reduce narrowing of the airways.

“In asthma, what happens is these patients develop enlarged smooth muscles surrounding their bronchial tubes. That contributes to asthma attacks. The idea is to decrease that,” Dr. Mario Castro of Washington University in St. Louis, who led the study, said in a telephone interview.

Castro and colleagues tested the device in 297 patients with severe asthma in six countries.

Researchers split the patients into two groups. Two-thirds got three treatments with the Alair device, and the rest received a placebo treatment, in which the heat was not applied.

The patients were followed closely for a year.

Overall, 79 percent of patients who got the experimental treatment improved.

Castro said the other group also improved, but the treatment group showed a statistically significant improvement.

“I think it’s a meaningful advance,” Castro said. “We have very limited options for these patients, who are very disabled.”

He said all of the patients were taking inhaled drugs combining a corticosteroid and a long-acting beta-agonist, such as in GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s best-selling drug Advair. But they were still not getting adequate relief.

The only other option for these patients is taking Xolair or omalizumab, Novartis AG’s drug for treating allergic asthma, but not everyone has asthma caused by allergies, Castro said.

Asthmatx Inc is seeking U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for the device, Castro said, and a decision is expected this fall. The treatment has been approved in Europe.

(Editing by Maggie Fox)

Technorati Tags: advair, allergic asthma, asthma symptoms, asthma treatment, asthma treatment device, experimental asthma treatment, severe asthma

GENEVA – As swine flu cases topped 6,600 worldwide, vaccine makers and other experts met Thursday at the World Health Organization to discuss the tough decisions that must be made quickly to fight the evolving virus.

Pharmaceutical companies are ready to begin making a swine flu vaccine — but as the virus may mutate, questions abound: How much should be produced? How will it be distributed? Who should get it?

The expert group’s recommendations will be passed to WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, who is expected to issue advice to vaccine manufacturers and the World Health Assembly next week.

WHO’s flu chief said the meeting of industry representatives and independent experts sought to answer questions including when to recommend to manufacturers that they switch from a seasonal vaccine to one that works against the pandemic strain.

“No big decisions, no announcements,” Keiji Fukuda told reporters after the meeting. “These are enormously complicated questions, and they are not something that anyone can make in a single meeting.”

But some feel the main decision has already been made.

“It’s a foregone conclusion,” said David Fedson, a vaccines expert and former professor of medicine at the University of Virginia. “If we don’t invest in an H1N1 (swine flu) vaccine, then possibly we could have a reappearance of this virus in a mild, moderate, or catastrophic form and we would have absolutely nothing.”

Most flu vaccine companies can only make one vaccine at a time: seasonal flu vaccine or pandemic vaccine. Production takes months and it is impossible to switch halfway through if health officials make a mistake.

Vaccine makers can make limited amounts of both seasonal flu vaccine and pandemic vaccine — though not at the same time — but they cannot make massive quantities of both because that exceeds manufacturing capacity.

“What is really going to be wrestled with is that seasonal influenza itself has a significant impact on people,” said Fukuda. “This is an infection which is estimated to kill some hundreds of thousands of people each year around the world, so there is a real trade-off if you just say we’re going to stop making that vaccine.”

At the moment, health officials aren’t sure how deadly swine flu is, and whether they will need more seasonal flu vaccine or swine flu vaccine. And if the swine flu mutates, scientists aren’t sure how effective a vaccine made now from the current strain will remain.

WHO estimates that up to 2 billion doses of swine flu vaccine could be produced every year, though the first batches wouldn’t be available for four to six months.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is currently working on a “seed stock” to make the vaccine, which should be ready in the next couple of weeks. That will be distributed to manufacturers worldwide so they can start producing the vaccine.

Until vaccine manufacturers get the seed stock, they won’t know how many doses of vaccine they can make or how long that would take. Sanofi Pasteur, the world’s biggest vaccine producer, said Thursday it is waiting for the green light from WHO before it starts making swine flu vaccine.

WHO is also negotiating with vaccine producers like GlaxoSmithKline PLC to save some of their swine flu vaccine for poorer nations. Many rich nations like Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Switzerland and the United States signed deals with vaccine makers years ago to guarantee them pandemic vaccines as soon as they’re available.

As of Thursday, at least 33 countries reported more than 6,600 cases of swine flu worldwide, with 70 deaths. The figures are based on tallies provided by national governments and WHO. According to the global body’s pandemic alert level, the world is at phase 5 — out of a possible 6 — meaning that a global outbreak is “imminent.”

“It’s a no-brainer,” Fedson said of the decision to make swine flu vaccine. “All that’s being discussed now is the details of how to make sure you have enough seasonal flu vaccine and the logistics of making the switch to H1N1 vaccine production.”

While the vaccine question hangs in the air, WHO has given Indian pharmaceuticals giant Cipla the medical go-ahead to produce a generic version of the anti-viral medication Tamiflu. The drug, also known as oseltamivir, is one of two anti-virals shown to work against swine flu.

WHO said Cipla’s generic version was as effective as the original made by Swiss firm Roche Holding AG and would hopefully make the drug more accessible to poor countries.

North America has been the hardest-hit continent. The United States has reported 3,352 laboratory-confirmed cases of swine flu, including four deaths. Arizona officials reported Thursday the latest case, a woman in her late 40s who died last week from what appeared to be complications from the illness.

On Thursday, New York City closed three schools in response to a swine flu outbreak that has left an assistant principal in critical condition and sent hundreds of kids home with flu symptoms, in a flare-up of the virus that sent shock waves through the world last month.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that four students and the assistant principal have documented cases of swine flu at a Queens middle school.

Mexico has 2,656 cases and 64 deaths, while Canada has 389 cases with one death, according to WHO figures.

Mexico confirmed 374 more cases Thursday including four more deaths, but Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova said the new cases show the virus is appearing less deadly. Mexico’s swine flu deaths now represent 2.4 percent of its confirmed cases, he said.

Spain and Britain have the most cases in Europe, at 100 and 78 respectively.

In Central America, Costa Rica has eight cases and one death and Panama has 29 cases.

___

Maria Cheng contributed from London.

Technorati Tags: pandemic vaccine, seasonal flu vaccine, seasonal influenza, swine flu, swine flu vaccine

THURSDAY, May 14 (HealthDay News) — Preliminary research suggests people who suffered fatal cardiac arrest were more likely to have taken antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs than those who survived heart attacks.

But the findings haven’t been confirmed elsewhere, and it’s not clear whether the medications directly cause any problems. Those who take the drugs could have other medical issues that contribute to a higher death rate, the researchers noted.

“It is too early to give concrete advice” to patients who take the drugs, said study author Dr. Jussi Honkola, a researcher at the University of Oulu in Finland. “We need further studies about this possible relationship.”

In other words, there’s no indication that anyone needs to change the drugs that they take for conditions such as depression and anxiety.

At issue is sudden cardiac death — when someone dies suddenly and unexpectedly, often within minutes, after the heart stops functioning properly. Heart attacks can lead to cardiac arrest and then sudden cardiac death. But heart attacks are technically something else — the death of heart tissue because blood flow is disrupted.

A variety of conditions can cause sudden cardiac death, including the clogging of arteries caused by coronary heart disease.

And, “despite many years of intensive research we still don’t know how to identify people who are at risk for sudden cardiac death,” Honkola said.

In the new study, the Finnish researchers examined the medications taken by 321 victims of cardiac death compared with those taken by 609 patients who survived heart attacks.

The findings were to be released Thursday at the Heart Rhythm Society’s annual meeting, in Boston.

The study doesn’t reveal specifically which psychiatric drugs were examined, but it does say that those who died of cardiac death were more likely to have taken one of three types.

Almost 11 percent of those who suffered sudden cardiac death took antipsychotics, compared to 1.4 percent of those who survived heart attacks. The numbers for antidepressants were 7.4 percent and 3 percent, respectively, and 18.4 percent and 5 percent for benzodiazepines, which include drugs such as Xanax.

Those who survived heart attacks were more likely to take aspirin and the heart drugs known as beta blockers.

The findings “are interesting, even provocative, but much more work remains to be done in order to have a high degree of confidence in the results,” said Dr. Robert A. Harrington, director of the Duke Clinical Research Institute in Durham, N.C.

“For now, society should insist upon randomized clinical trials during and after the drug approval process that test therapies in patients who will likely take the drugs in ‘real life,’” Harrington said.

That means those who take part in tests of drugs represent those who ultimately take them when it comes to their medical conditions and the other drugs that they’re taking, he explained.

Technorati Tags: antidepressants, antipsychotics, benzodiazepines, cardiac death, clinical trials, heart drugs, medical, psychiatric drugs

ATLANTA (Reuters) – Americans are expressing anxiety about swine flu, and the sale of flu medication and items such as protective face masks are up in some places where cases have been confirmed.

“It’s a weird situation right now,” said Aaron Armelin, a telecommunications technician in Los Angeles.

“Everyone’s a little leery of anyone coughing. Even though the news makes it seem really, really bad, it doesn’t seem like it’s actually that much of a concern,” Armelin added.

Interviews with people around the United States indicated few signs of panic or wholesale changes in behavior due to an outbreak of a new virus that has sickened people in several U.S. states and killed up to 149 people in neighboring Mexico.

Big drug store chain Rite Aid Corp said it had seen a jump in sales of Roche Holding AG’s flu drug Tamiflu in New York, California and New Jersey and a national increase in sales of face masks, thermometers and hand sanitizers.

Some stores in the Walgreen drug store chain had sold out of surgical masks and sales were up elsewhere in prescription Tamiflu and hand sanitizers, a spokesman said.

Some people said they were struggling to balance their concern over the virus with what they saw as media exaggeration of the threat.

“People are fairly skeptical about the whole thing. They are just tired of the media that blows things out of proportion,” said Ron Ladner, who owns a restaurant in the small town of Pass Christian on Mississippi’s Gulf Coast.

“Most people … have other problems. In a normal environment they might be worried, but most people are concerned about the economy and paying their bills,” Ladner said.

‘WHEN IS IT GOING TO STOP?’

The flu outbreak comes at a time when the United States is mired in its worst economic recession in decades, increasing a sense for some people of multiple threats to stability coming all at once.

“It’s on all the media, people with masks on their faces, and it’s frightening,” said Carole Brazsky, who works in a coffee shop in Scottsdale, Arizona.

“First it’s jobs, then it’s foreclosures, now it’s this. It’s just one more thing. It’s like: when is it going to stop?” she said.

A previous event that spurred changes in U.S. consumer behavior was the September 11, 2001 attack, said Michael Walton, an economics professor at North Carolina State University.

That triggered a short-term spike in purchases of bottled water and food because of fears that the population might be deprived of access to basic goods, as well as a drop in the number of people taking flights, Walton noted.

“If we do see this (swine flu) escalate with thousands of cases and perhaps deaths and if we see increasingly cautionary tones from government officials, then consumers would react similar to 9/11. But we don’t see anything like that now,” he said.

Even so, some people said they were taking extra precautions particularly in social environments.

“People are talking more about that — ‘Have we got hand sanitizer?’ and, ‘Everybody wash their hands,’” said Hugo Ospina, who works for a law firm in downtown Los Angeles. He added that people were “a little scared.”

(Additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles and Tim Gaynor in Phoenix; Editing by Pascal Fletcher)

Technorati Tags: Anxiety, drug tamiflu, flu medication, prescription Tamiflu, swine flu, swine flu precautions

(HealthDay News) — A “nanoparticle” topical treatment for erectile dysfunction appears to work well, at least in a study involving rats.

According to the researchers, five of seven rats developed erections after their penises received a coating of a special hybrid of nanoparticles that slowly released nitric oxide (NO), which relaxes cells in the penis to help blood vessels open, bringing in more blood and swelling the tissues.

The rats’ average erectile response to the treatment was about an hour, according to the research team headed by members from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, N.Y.

Erectile dysfunction, which is estimated to affect up to 30 million American men, can range from being able to only briefly sustain an erection to not being able to achieve one at all, according to the U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Several types of oral or injectable medications are currently available to manage the condition.

The study is scheduled to be presented this week in Chicago at the annual scientific meeting of the American Urological Association.

“This is a very interesting concept which has potential to impact treatment of many conditions, including erectile dysfunction, if it can be translated from the animal lab to clinical practice,” American Urological Association spokesman Dr. Ira D. Sharlip said in a news release issued by the organization. “It remains to be seen whether the effect of the nanoparticle technology is a local or a systemic effect.”

More information

The American Academy of Family Physicians has more about erectile dysfunction.

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