| Pregnancy complication linked to protein pair
Two proteins secreted by the placenta may be responsible for virtually all cases of pre-eclampsia, a severe complication of pregnancy that can be fatal to mother or baby, researchers reported last week. Abnormally high levels of the proteins could be used to predict the development of the disorder weeks before symptoms occur, experts said, and the findings suggest new ways to treat the problem. A World Health Organization team is beginning to organize a test of the proteins' predictive value among pregnant women in the Third World, and Fremont, Calif.-based biotech company Scios Inc. is looking for money to test a potential treatment. "This finding appears to be an important step in developing a cure for pre-eclampsia," said Dr. Elias Zerhouni, director of the National Institutes of Health.
Food Allergies: Rare but Risky
Do you start itching whenever you eat peanuts? Does seafood cause your stomach to churn? Symptoms like these cause millions of Americans to suspect they have a food allergy. But true food allergies affect a relatively small percentage of people: Experts estimate that only 2 percent of adults, and from 2 to 8 percent of children, are truly allergic to certain foods. Food allergy is different from food intolerance, and the term is sometimes used in a vague, all-encompassing way, muddying the waters for people who want to understand what a real food allergy is. "Many people who have a complaint, an illness, or some discomfort attribute it to something they have eaten. Because in this country we eat almost all the time, people tend to draw false associations between food and illness," says Dean Metcalfe, M.D., head of the Mast Cell and Physiology Section at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Debate again shadows Accutane
Virtually no one opposes the goal of the mandatory new federal program governing the use of Accutane: to prevent pregnant women from taking the potent acne drug, approved in 1982, because it causes serious birth defects. That is where the consensus about the unusually restrictive six-month-old program known as iPledge ends. The program requires registration of all parties: wholesalers who sell it, pharmacists who dispense it, doctors who prescribe it and, above all, patients who take the drug. Public health officials say such strict regulation is necessary because years of progressively stronger voluntary programs failed to prevent pregnancy in users of the medicine, a treatment of last resort for severe scarring acne. Most of the estimated 200,000 Americans who take the drug generically known as isotretinoin each year are younger than 30; half are female.
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