USP's hospital medication error report supports key patient safety goals
... records involving errors with infusion pumps were harmful to patients; and MEDMARX Finds That High-Alert Medications Continued to Harm Patients in 2002 This year's USP MEDMARX report found that high-alert medications continued to harm hospitalized patients. Medications designated as "high-alert" tend to ha...How harmful are additives and preservatives in childhood vaccines?
...elatin proteins and egg proteins are known to have harmful effects while in vaccines, but such effects are ve... of aluminum in vaccines have not been shown to be harmful in animal studies. Substances remaining in vaccines as residuals of the manufacturing process may i...Future medical leaders have shorter futures, study says
...ical school presidency may also be associated with harmful status-seeking behaviour tendencies that impair family relationships and limit exercise time, among others. Redelmeier and co-author Dr. Jeffrey Kwong, a former U of T medical class president who is now a community medicine resident at the universit...Study finds elderly patients achieve seizure freedom on epilepsy therapy
...pilepsy, increasing the likelihood for potentially harmful drug interactions with seizure medications these patients might have been taking. Whereas most AEDs undergo metabolism in the liver, Keppra is cleared only by the kidneys and is not affected by other drugs. Keppra is approved by the Food and Drug Ad...Low-dose interferon fails to improve survival in high-risk melanoma patients
...ld be effective in extending survival, without the harmful side effects of high-dose interferon. Of the 674 patients enrolled in this trial, 338 received interferon following surgery, and 336 received no follow up treatment. After five years, 63% of patients in both groups experienced disease recurrence (21...Synthetic progestin damages, estrogen protects blood vessels in animal model
... -- Synthetic progestins may be the major cause of harmful side effects reported with hormone replacement therapy. University of South Florida researchers used a novel imaging technique to show that progestins caused toxicity while natural progesterone and estrogen did not show toxicity to blood vessels in l...Early promise for steroid-free liver transplantation in children
...tric liver transplantation. Our results suggest no harmful effect of steroid avoidance for graft acceptance, but this finding will need to be confirmed after extended follow-up." ...Placebo-controlled clinical trials put children with asthma at risk
... in the placebo arm of a clinical trial is common, harmful and ethically unjustified argue researchers from the University of Chicago and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the January 2004 issue of Pediatrics. After a systematic review of all clinical asthma trials involving children in the Unite...Many children with autism may receive complementary or alternative treatments
...ldren (9 percent of the total) using a potentially harmful approach. Latino children were more likely to us...). A third category includes unproven, potentially harmful treatments (such as chelation, antibiotics, high-dose vitamin A, immunoglobins or withholding immuni...Moderate-fat diet is kinder to heart than low-fat diet, study by UB researcher shows
...d lowered the concentration of triglycerides, also harmful to heart health. Low-fat dieters experienced an initial drop in triglycerides, but at the end of the study, these fats had rebounded, HDL levels were lower and the ratio of HDL to total and non-HDL cholesterol didn't change. "We don't know very muc...Probiotics beneficial even when inactive, according to UCSD study
...oenterology*, ISS-ODN had been found to reduce the harmful effects of experimental colitis in mice, indicating that it worked in a manner similar to probiotics. According to the study's first author, Daniel Rachmilewitz, M.D., Division of Medicine, Shaare Zedek Medical Center, evaluation of the immunostimula...Gene therapy technique could aid islet transplants for diabetes, says Pittsburgh study
...rrently used after human islet cell transplants is harmful to transplanted rat pancreatic islets and can actually induce diabetes in rats. "This study suggests that the current immunosuppression regimen might be further optimized or changed and has potential implications for further improving islet transplan...Study shows women's medication use higher than expected
...pression, which has been shown to have potentially harmful interactions with prescription antidepressants. "Will this drug interaction kill you? Probably not," Tracy says. "Can you experience serious adverse effects? Yes."...NIH researchers test promising new therapy for blinding eye disease
...und that T helper cells, which normally help fight harmful bacteria and viruses, initiate an immune response in the eye. Further work observed that the T helper cells that attack the eye have large numbers of interleukin-2 (IL-2) receptors on their surface. This receptor activates the cell and acts like an...Light-sensitive gloves reduce risk of germ transfer
... exposed to light or moisture, killing potentially harmful microbes and making it ideal for use among health care and food workers, according to a study in the March 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, now available online. The vinyl or polyethylene gloves contain microspheres that release chlorine dio...Mouse model of neuromuscular disease identifies key player in motor neuron death
...one way that the motor neuron protects itself from harmful insults and stresses. Studies of ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) also point to the VEGF axis as critical for motor neuron health, so it is distinctly possible that all motor neuron diseases share interruption of the VEGF axis as part of their pat...Innovative reconstructive surgery improves appearance, outcomes for skin cancer patients
...g spent her youth basking unprotected in the sun's harmful rays. She is one of 250,000 Americans each year who develop a form of skin cancer called squamous cell carcinoma. If caught early, squamous cell carcinoma typically doesn't spread, but if neglected or undiscovered for years, it can spread to other pa...Tobacco should be excluded from free trade agreement
...atible with international law, which exempts other harmful products such as landmines, and World Trade Organisation commitments to protect human life. Negotiators from the European Union and Mercosur must act to protect the future health of generations by excluding tobacco from this agreement. Such action wo...Detecting vitamin B12 deficiency prevents anaemia and memory loss
... way to pick up early warning signs of potentially harmful B12 deficits. The project pioneered a unique B12 detection system, which tracks concentrations of holotc (short for holo-transcobalamin), a biologically active complex of the vitamin plus a carrier protein. Although the holotc complex carries only 20...USC study finds hormone supplement used by athletes may not increase testosterone
...he testosterone, but they may be getting something harmful in the process." Sokol notes that interest in over-the-counter steroid supplement DHEA rose after baseball's former slugger Mark McGwire said he used androstenedione or "andro," a similar muscle-pumping pill to help achieve his record-setting home-ru...