Testing It Up

According to research the level of habitual alcohol abuse and smoling can have an effect on your relationship. While the relationship seems to do well if the level of use is similar if there is a major difference in the level you use versus that of your partner it could have negative consequences. If this difference is especially prominent (most notably in cases where one spouse is abstinent and the other uses these substances) it can cause significant damage to the relationship and could be a major reason for that relationship’s failure.

Using a questionnaire format 634 newly married couples were asked to take part in the survey over the course of 7 years. When they reached the 2^nd, 4^th and 7^th years they were asked to rate their level of satisfaction with their marriage. There was a noted decline in the first few years and then a period of leveling off. Heavy drinking was most common in these cases.

Major changes such as a couple that goes through a significant alteration in use (such as when one enters treatment or AA) can have particularly harmful side effects as one partner tries to lower their use or quit while the other continues.

This research underlines the need for therapy that includes both partners to be effective and save the relationship from being damaged. Factors like the partner’s use levels should also be considered part of the treatment for a patient to be successful.

A new version of the common pain relief drug made by Purdue Pharma LP has been made and is being considered by the FDA. The newer Oxycotin is being touted as a much harder pill than in previous versions (it has a coating with a plastic quality) thereby making it much harder to crush for snorting or injecting with the purpose drug abuse .

Awaiting approval by the FDA (they want the company to prove the drugs ability to better withstand tampering) the drug has been in the testing phase since going before an advisory board to the FDA last year.

Oxycotin was made to offer pain relief over the course of a 12 hour period for those in severe pain. Not long after its release in 1996 however, it was being abused to achieve a high like that produced by the illegal drug heroin and the abuse of the drug has persisted ever since. Problems like these have prompted the FDA to try making programs that warn against the abuse to no effect. As a result they’ve begun to encourage drug makers to help remedy the problem by producing drugs that are harder to tamper with.

Johnson and Johnson has recalled several varieties of children’s and infant’s cold medication due to a potential risk for bacterial contamination.  Those items being recalled were made between April and June and involve almost two dozen varieties of the company’s children’s medications.  The company has contacted whole sale distributors and retailers about their intentions to recall. A B. cepacia bacterium was found in a portion of the raw material that didn’t get used in the finished product. While the bacterial contamination was found in a sample that wasn’t shipped out in its complete forms the company is recalling any shipment that could be related to that mixture as a precaution.

There is very little serious medical reaction risks involved with using these products despite the recall.  If you feel that you might have any of the products that are being recalled you can check the list of recalled products at the company’s website. There are 21 items on the recall list, most of which are liquid cold and allergy medications. You’ll need to find the lot number of the product to check if it’s being recalled, this is available on the bottom of the box or on the sticker which surrounds the bottle.

According to CNN medical correspondent Sajay Gupta H1N1 is “a lot like…the flu”. The correspondent has firsthand knowledge about what it was like to experience the new and more virulent form of the flu after he dealt with it in Afghanistan. The doctor explains that the symptoms began as a cough that stings the chest and went on to become fever, body aches, and eventually nausea and vomiting.

While the virus is considered to be a serious health concern worldwide Gupta’s own case was treated as any other case of the flu might have been with a decongestant, Tylenol and eventually an IV (to replace lost fluids when they couldn’t be held down). Dr. Gupta expressed a strong belief that most people will have no more serious symptoms than he himself had and have the added benefit of easily accessible medical care, a luxury didn’t have while he was in Afghanistan. This is interesting news in light of the warnings put out by such groups as the World Health Organization who warned that the first strain of the flu shouldn’t be used as a guide for how serious the impending strain will be.

New hope in the quest to treat and vaccinate against the AIDS virus has finally begun to look possible! An experimental vaccine that has been developed and is currently undergoing testing has shown at least moderate success in preventing the virus from developing in those it was administered to in an initial trial. The vaccine is a combination of two previous vaccines which failed to have an effect but has offered the 16,000(the expansive trial was done in Thailand) who took it a more than 31% reduction in the risk of developing the virus.

While the success rate is still moderate it’s a much larger leap in the right direction than has been seen thus far. Strains that are common in Thailand were used for testing and so it’s not known how effective it will be against strains found in other parts of the world like Africa and the United States. Even a vaccine with a moderate success rate could help reduce the rate of those infected every year. 2 million died from AIDS in 2007 and everyday about 7,500 are freshly infected by HIV. This is the third large trial since testing was first tried in 1983 after HIV was discovered to be the cause of AIDS.

Over 100 wells in Morrison, Wisconsin are polluted thanks to uncontrolled runoff from dairy farms leaving residents ill and dealing with symptoms like chronic diarrhea, severe ear infections and stomach illnesses. Water there was tested and found to have been contaminated with things like E.coli  and coliform bacteria among other contaminants more commonly found in cow manure.

How did this happen?

There are few regulations that make efforts to control things like this. While there are laws that were made to protect and regulate water and wastes that pass through ditches and pipes the same can’t be said for above ground wastes like manure which is sometimes used for fertilizer on farms.  Larger cattle farms are meant to be regulated (the EPA has made laws to help regulate them) however most farms don’t bother to fill out paperwork that makes the EPA aware of them. To make matters worse laws passed by the Bush administration allow many of these farms to self-certify their lack of pollution making it easier to bypass any regulation that might prove otherwise.

Agricultural runoff is the greatest pollutant of U.S. streams and rivers, sickening at least 19.5 million Americans every year. Parasites, bacteria and viruses travel in these waters coming from animal and human wastes pumped into them from various sources throughout the nation. The problem has only recently gotten much focus, inspiring a major article from the New York Times last week.

New York Health Screening

Phenergan (also known as promethazine), a drug intended for use as an intravenous anti-nausea drug has been required to have a strict safety warning placed on its label by Food and Drug Administration. What’s caused the FDA to act so strongly? Apparently Phenergan when injected by accident into an artery can cause serious tissue damage and even gangrene, issues that could become serious enough to require amputation.

The decision to demand a warning comes after a Supreme Court case was made forcing Wyeth, the drug’s maker to pay 6.8 million to a Vermont musician who lost her arm and hand to the drug after it was accidently injected into an artery in 2000. In an appeal Wyeth pled that the FDA had labeled a less strict warning adequate enough for the drug. At the time drug companies were hoping that cases like this one would kill lawsuits made by people who felt that drug warnings weren’t clear enough about the potentially harmful and debilitating effects of certain drugs and therefore caused their injuries. Was drug maker Wyeth or the FDA more responsible for any harmful side effects that occurred due to the less than clear warning placed on the drug?

It seems clear based on this change in the warning that the FDA is starting to be more concerned with protecting patients and upholding safety than they once appeared to be.

The NFL’s drug testing program may no longer be enforceable; thanks to a federal court ruling and they might not be the only U.S. sport that will be facing the backlash. The NFL, MLB, NHL and NBA have all begun programs in an effort to discipline players who’ve been found to be using illegal steroids. Now thanks to the ruling these players will be able to use state courts to challenge suspensions made based on doping charges from their sports leagues.

The ruling made in the 8^th Circuit Court of Appeals of Minneapolis upheld the ruling of a lower court prohibiting the NFL from suspending two Minnesota Vikings who were being punished for violating the anti-doping policy. Stating that state level courts could be used to contest suspensions of this type, the court made the ruling on the basis of laws barring employers from suspending or firing an employee on the basis of an initial positive drug test.

The NFL like most sports leagues had been making suspension policies that penalized players for positive tests not considering these laws that exist in Minnesota and several other states. The ruling is viewed as a major change in the overall bargaining process for players, potentially opening new doors for players who hadn’t previously been able to lay claim to rights that regular employees experienced every day.

Hormonal imbalance is becoming more and more common in younger women. Doctors are still unsure as to how to deal with it and misdiagnosis can lead to various problems with a woman’s overall health, such as heart ailments, infertility and cancer.

There are many possible causes of hormonal imbalance. One such cause is stress, where the body produces too much cortisol and other hormones are secreted to cancel it out. Another cause is an imbalanced diet. Improper exercise also leads to hormonal imbalance, as too much or too little can impede with the production of hormones. Taking hormonal supplements such as birth control pills also puts the body’s hormone balance out of whack.

Certain diseases like cancer and PCOS also create hormonal imbalance in a woman’s body. Some forms of cancer affecting females feed on the body’s hormones. PCOS causes the body to secrete too much androgen. Lastly, environmental toxins can also lead to hormonal imbalance.

For full version of this article, please visit “7 Most Common Causes of Hormonal Imbalance“.

The chief executive of the Professional Footballers Association, Gordon Taylor has revealed his opposition to the World Anti-Doping Agency’s expected pronouncement that home drug testing be done on soccer players before the World Cup finals. Citing the view that such action would be an invasion of privacy for players he also expressed concern that it might be directed at certain key players who he feels will also be expected to dictate where they are and what they’re doing 365 days a year.

Taylor goes on to say that he has no problem complying with the standard drug testing already used by the WADA policy but is concerned that these new regulations will focus on injured players in order to make sure they heal without the use of drugs that could “speed up” the process of healing. Focusing on healing back to a state of fitness by standard means, he feels WADA is trying to force the players to conform to a certain standard even in their private lives where social drugs could be in use outside the sports competition that WADA was made to regulate.