February 13, 2015
A roundup of news on drug resistance and other topics in global health.
More doctors means more competition and more antibiotics. CDDEP fellow Eili Klein and Director Ramanan Laxminarayan published a story in The Conversation US about their recent study on physician competition and antibiotic prescribing rates. An article from CNBC focused on their research, in addition to a recent paper on inappropriate antibiotic prescriptions and a RAND Corporation analysis of the economic costs of antimicrobial resistance. Laxminarayan was also featured this week in Chemistry World, the magazine of the Royal Society of Chemistry, in an interview on the complexities of antibiotic resistance in India. [The Conversation, CNBC, Chemistry World]
A study that pooled data on nearly one million people found that smoking is linked to more deaths than previously thought. The paper, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that at least 60,000 additional deaths can be attributed to tobacco in the US annually, on top of nearly half a million from already established links. Newly attributable causes include kidney failure, intestinal ischemia, cancers and several types of infection, adding considerably to the current estimated burden of disease. [New England Journal of Medicine, CDC]
Measles continues to spread in pockets of the US. Illinois has now reported at least ten cases in and around suburban Chicago, and the CDC estimated that as of Monday there were 121 cases spread over 17 states and Washington, D.C. since the beginning of the year. An outbreak of mumps, a disease that is vaccinated against alongside measles in the MMR vaccine, has also surfaced in Idaho and eastern Washington. [Chicago Sun Times, CDC, Reuters]
The HPV vaccine is not linked with any increase in sexually-transmitted infections, according to a paper published in JAMA Internal Medicine. Researchers examined six years of records for teenage girls aged 12 to 19 and found no significant difference in STI rates between the vaccinated and nonvaccinated. The results may address a common reason parents give for not vaccinating their children: A paper published in 2008 found that parents’ greatest concern regarding the vaccine was that it could encourage risky sexual behavior. [JAMA Internal Medicine, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences]
Red Cross volunteers combating Ebola have been attacked an average of ten times a month in the last year. The Red Cross reported this week that its burial teams in Guinea have been and continue to be verbally and physically attacked, frequently in communities seeing the disease for the first time. WHO estimates reported an uptick in the number of cases in West Africa in the last two weeks, after new incidence had decreased previously. President Obama announced on Wednesday that the majority of US military personnel who had been deployed to the area will return home by the end of April, citing significant progress in reducing the spread of disease. [The New York Times, WHO, The White House]
Drug resistance is spreading through rivers in India and the United Kingdom. An article in Financial Times highlighted the concerning spread of antibiotic resistance along the Ganges river in India, which is being driven by rising antibiotic prescription rates, poor sanitation and a lack of sufficient waste water treatment. Another study from researchers at the University of Warwick focused on antibiotic levels in the Thames river and found a variety of factors influenced the prevalence of resistance, including location and type of waste water treatment facility and environmental factors like rainfall and land cover. [Financial Times, University of Warwick]
83 cases of avian influenza (H7N9) have been reported in China since late December, the majority of which were acquired through contact with live poultry farms or markets. A disease outbreak report from the World Health Organization stated that the Chinese government is taking increased measures in surveillance and control to address the situation. [WHO]
Antibiotics cause an ever-increasing number of adverse health effects. A study published in the BMJ’s Gut journal focused on a few newly discovered ones, including destruction of cells in the intestinal epithelium (critical for water and nutrient absorption) and disruption of signaling between the host and gut microbes, which can cause a number of digestive and immune problems. [Gut]
FDA misconduct findings are rarely reported to the public or in scientific journals. Research published this week in JAMA Internal Medicine found that only 3 of 78 trials where the FDA had found fraud or misconduct violations—including fabrication of evidence—mentioned the findings in published studies on the trials. The author of the paper, a journalism professor at NYU, wrote about the investigation in Slate, where he also noted that the FDA doesn’t notify the public, medical establishment or scientific community about such findings. [JAMA Internal Medicine, Slate]
CDDEP is looking to hire a Research Analyst in Economics for its New Delhi office. For more information and to apply, visit Working at OHT
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Image of cigarettes courtesy Karoly Czifra, retrieved via Flickr and used with Creative Commons license.
