Study urges three-year gap in cervical cancer test

WASHINGTON: Healthy women over 30 who test negative for human papilloma viruses (HPV) may be able to safely extend the period between gynecological exams from every year to three years, said a US study Wednesday.

"Our results are a formal confirmation that the three-year follow-up is appropriate and safe for women who have a negative HPV and normal test result," said lead study author Hormuzd Katki.

The study followed 331,818 women who enrolled in a northern California testing program by Kaiser Permanente between 2003 and 2005, and followed them for five years.

Among women who had a normal Pap smear and tested negative for HPV, which can cause cervical cancer, the five-year cancer risk was "very low: 2.3 per 100,000 women per year," it said.

During a Pap smear, which all women should get annually, a doctor collects a sample of tissue from the woman's cervix and sends it to a lab for examination and to check for any abnormal cells.

A separate test for HPV is also done during a woman's annual gynecological appointment. It often uses the same cell sample but looks specifically for signs of the virus.

HPV is sexually transmitted and most of the time the body can clear it on its own.

However, in some cases the infection remains and can eventually lead to cervical cancer.

Women over 30 who test positive for HPV are usually retested in six months to see if the infection has cleared.

The researchers said that when comparing the two tests, the HPV test alone "identified more women at high risk for cervical cancer than Pap tests."

"These results also suggest that an HPV-negative test result alone could be enough to give a high level of security for extending the testing interval to every three years," said Katki.

More study is needed however to determine whether such recommendations should extend to the general population, the researchers noted.

"But we'll need additional evidence from routine clinical practice, and formal recommendations from guideline panels before that can be routinely recommended."

The Pap smear, invented in 1943, has reduced the number of cervical cancer cases but has not eliminated them -- some 11,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with cervical cancer each year.

source: GEO.TV

Study urges three-year gap in cervical cancer test

WASHINGTON: Healthy women over 30 who test negative for human papilloma viruses (HPV) may be able to safely extend the period between gynecological exams from every year to three years, said a US study Wednesday.

"Our results are a formal confirmation that the three-year follow-up is appropriate and safe for women who have a negative HPV and normal test result," said lead study author Hormuzd Katki.

The study followed 331,818 women who enrolled in a northern California testing program by Kaiser Permanente between 2003 and 2005, and followed them for five years.

Among women who had a normal Pap smear and tested negative for HPV, which can cause cervical cancer, the five-year cancer risk was "very low: 2.3 per 100,000 women per year," it said.

During a Pap smear, which all women should get annually, a doctor collects a sample of tissue from the woman's cervix and sends it to a lab for examination and to check for any abnormal cells.

A separate test for HPV is also done during a woman's annual gynecological appointment. It often uses the same cell sample but looks specifically for signs of the virus.

HPV is sexually transmitted and most of the time the body can clear it on its own.

However, in some cases the infection remains and can eventually lead to cervical cancer.

Women over 30 who test positive for HPV are usually retested in six months to see if the infection has cleared.

The researchers said that when comparing the two tests, the HPV test alone "identified more women at high risk for cervical cancer than Pap tests."

"These results also suggest that an HPV-negative test result alone could be enough to give a high level of security for extending the testing interval to every three years," said Katki.

More study is needed however to determine whether such recommendations should extend to the general population, the researchers noted.

"But we'll need additional evidence from routine clinical practice, and formal recommendations from guideline panels before that can be routinely recommended."

The Pap smear, invented in 1943, has reduced the number of cervical cancer cases but has not eliminated them -- some 11,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with cervical cancer each year.

source: GEO.TV

Experts debate destroying last smallpox viruses

LONDON: Smallpox, one of the world's deadliest diseases, eradicated three decades ago, is kept alive under tight security today in just two places — the United States and Russia.

Many other countries say the world would be safer if those stockpiles of the virus were destroyed.

Now for the fifth time, at a World Health Organization meeting next week, they will push again for the virus' destruction. And again it seems likely their efforts will be futile.

U.S. and Russian government officials say it is essential they keep some smallpox alive in case a future biological threat demands more tests with the virus. They also say the virus samples are still needed to develop experimental vaccines and drugs.

It was in 1996 that WHO's member countries first agreed smallpox should be destroyed. But they have repeatedly delayed a demand for destruction so that scientists could develop safer smallpox vaccines and drugs. That's now largely been done: There are two vaccines, a third in the works, and there are experimental drugs being developed for treating it, but not curing it.

Yet even if most of WHO's member countries vote to set a new date for destruction, the agency doesn't have the power to enforce the decision.

The scientific community remains divided over whether the smallpox samples should be destroyed. The respected journal Nature editorialized against it earlier this year, arguing that scientists need the ability to do further research, and perhaps develop new vaccines and treatments in an era of possible biological attack. However, one of the most prominent figures in wiping out the deadly, disfiguring disease is in favor of destroying all remnants of it.

"It would be an excellent idea to destroy the smallpox viruses," said Dr. Donald A. Henderson, who led WHO's eradication effort in the 1970s. "This is an organism to be greatly feared."

He says possession of smallpox by those not authorized to have it should be made a crime against humanity and that international authorities should prosecute any country found with it.

A report by independent researchers commissioned by WHO last year concluded there was no compelling scientific reason to hang onto the viruses and that the stockpiles were mainly needed to continue advanced development of the drug treatment and satisfy regulatory requirements. Yet other scientists contend the stockpiles could still provide valuable information in the future.

Smallpox is one of the most lethal diseases in history. For centuries, it killed about one-third of the people it infected, including Queen Mary II of England, and left most survivors with deep scars on their faces from the hideous pus-filled lesions. The last known case was in Britain in 1978 when a university photographer who worked above a lab handling smallpox died after being accidentally exposed to it from the building's air duct system.

Smallpox vaccines are made from vaccinia, a milder related virus. "We have many ways of looking at smallpox, including gene mapping, that means we don't need the actual (smallpox) virus," said Henderson, who is now with the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

American and Russian officials disagree.

Dr. Nils Daulaire, director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Global Affairs, said the U.S. will again ask WHO to postpone a decision calling for the stockpile's destruction. He said U.S. scientists need more time to finish research into how well new vaccines and drugs work against the virus. But he acknowledged U.S. officials also want their own supply in case terrorists unleash smallpox as a biological weapon and additional study is needed.

A scientist at the Russian laboratory where smallpox is kept, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said the virus should be kept in case similar ones pop up in the future and more studies are needed.

Meanwhile, officials from developing countries are anxious to close the last chapter on the disease.

"There is a consensus to destroy the viruses, so how come we're in this situation where we're pandering to the U.S. and Russia?" asked Lim Li Ching, a biosafety expert at Third World Network, a group that lobbies on behalf of developing countries.

Oyewale Tomori, a virology professor at Redeemer's University in Nigeria, said most African countries want smallpox destroyed. Tomori also sits on a WHO Advisory Committee on smallpox. "Africa is one part of the world where a biological attack with smallpox is likely to have a more devastating effect," he said.

Keiji Fukuda, WHO's assistant director-general for health security and the environment, said the agency remains concerned about the possibility of smallpox's return. "The chance of an outbreak is reasonably low, but not zero," he said. With the new vaccines and drugs, Fukuda was optimistic any smallpox outbreak would be stamped out relatively quickly though acknowledged any new cases might spark global alarm.

"If smallpox were to reappear, we would be in a much better situation than in the past, considering the vaccine supplies and strategies that have been demonstrated to work," he said. He guessed that stamping out a smallpox outbreak would be faster than the four months it took to mostly end the 2003 global outbreak of SARS, where doctors could only isolate patients and trace suspect cases. With smallpox, Fukuda said countries could quickly vaccinate people in surrounding areas and that drugs could be sent to treat patients.

Fukuda said many rich countries like the U.S. have their own smallpox vaccine stockpiles. WHO also has at least 30 million doses for poor countries in case the virus re-emerges, but that supply uses older vaccines that can trigger AIDS in people who have HIV.

David Evans, a smallpox expert at the University of Alberta, who was part of the WHO team that inspected the U.S. and Russian labs holding smallpox several years ago, says he doubts the virus could escape from either facility. The viruses are kept at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology in Novosibirsk, Siberia.

Laboratories where smallpox is kept have the highest possible containment measures. Scientists who work with the virus use fingerprint or retinal scans to get inside, wear a full-body suit including gloves and goggles, and shower with strong disinfectant before leaving the lab and taking off the suit. The U.S. smallpox viruses, which include samples from Britain, Japan and the Netherlands, are stored in liquid nitrogen.

Rumors about stockpiles in countries like Iraq and North Korea have never been proven, and Evans said it would be too difficult to experiment with smallpox and keep it a secret. "The nations I would worry about, weird places run by odd dictators, they're just not capable of doing this stuff," he said.

Evans thinks it's unlikely terrorists would resort to smallpox in a biological attack. "If you want to disrupt countries, there are lots of easier ways to do it than to experiment with something so dangerous," he said.

Experts debate destroying last smallpox viruses

LONDON: Smallpox, one of the world's deadliest diseases, eradicated three decades ago, is kept alive under tight security today in just two places — the United States and Russia.

Many other countries say the world would be safer if those stockpiles of the virus were destroyed.

Now for the fifth time, at a World Health Organization meeting next week, they will push again for the virus' destruction. And again it seems likely their efforts will be futile.

U.S. and Russian government officials say it is essential they keep some smallpox alive in case a future biological threat demands more tests with the virus. They also say the virus samples are still needed to develop experimental vaccines and drugs.

It was in 1996 that WHO's member countries first agreed smallpox should be destroyed. But they have repeatedly delayed a demand for destruction so that scientists could develop safer smallpox vaccines and drugs. That's now largely been done: There are two vaccines, a third in the works, and there are experimental drugs being developed for treating it, but not curing it.

Yet even if most of WHO's member countries vote to set a new date for destruction, the agency doesn't have the power to enforce the decision.

The scientific community remains divided over whether the smallpox samples should be destroyed. The respected journal Nature editorialized against it earlier this year, arguing that scientists need the ability to do further research, and perhaps develop new vaccines and treatments in an era of possible biological attack. However, one of the most prominent figures in wiping out the deadly, disfiguring disease is in favor of destroying all remnants of it.

"It would be an excellent idea to destroy the smallpox viruses," said Dr. Donald A. Henderson, who led WHO's eradication effort in the 1970s. "This is an organism to be greatly feared."

He says possession of smallpox by those not authorized to have it should be made a crime against humanity and that international authorities should prosecute any country found with it.

A report by independent researchers commissioned by WHO last year concluded there was no compelling scientific reason to hang onto the viruses and that the stockpiles were mainly needed to continue advanced development of the drug treatment and satisfy regulatory requirements. Yet other scientists contend the stockpiles could still provide valuable information in the future.

Smallpox is one of the most lethal diseases in history. For centuries, it killed about one-third of the people it infected, including Queen Mary II of England, and left most survivors with deep scars on their faces from the hideous pus-filled lesions. The last known case was in Britain in 1978 when a university photographer who worked above a lab handling smallpox died after being accidentally exposed to it from the building's air duct system.

Smallpox vaccines are made from vaccinia, a milder related virus. "We have many ways of looking at smallpox, including gene mapping, that means we don't need the actual (smallpox) virus," said Henderson, who is now with the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

American and Russian officials disagree.

Dr. Nils Daulaire, director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Global Affairs, said the U.S. will again ask WHO to postpone a decision calling for the stockpile's destruction. He said U.S. scientists need more time to finish research into how well new vaccines and drugs work against the virus. But he acknowledged U.S. officials also want their own supply in case terrorists unleash smallpox as a biological weapon and additional study is needed.

A scientist at the Russian laboratory where smallpox is kept, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said the virus should be kept in case similar ones pop up in the future and more studies are needed.

Meanwhile, officials from developing countries are anxious to close the last chapter on the disease.

"There is a consensus to destroy the viruses, so how come we're in this situation where we're pandering to the U.S. and Russia?" asked Lim Li Ching, a biosafety expert at Third World Network, a group that lobbies on behalf of developing countries.

Oyewale Tomori, a virology professor at Redeemer's University in Nigeria, said most African countries want smallpox destroyed. Tomori also sits on a WHO Advisory Committee on smallpox. "Africa is one part of the world where a biological attack with smallpox is likely to have a more devastating effect," he said.

Keiji Fukuda, WHO's assistant director-general for health security and the environment, said the agency remains concerned about the possibility of smallpox's return. "The chance of an outbreak is reasonably low, but not zero," he said. With the new vaccines and drugs, Fukuda was optimistic any smallpox outbreak would be stamped out relatively quickly though acknowledged any new cases might spark global alarm.

"If smallpox were to reappear, we would be in a much better situation than in the past, considering the vaccine supplies and strategies that have been demonstrated to work," he said. He guessed that stamping out a smallpox outbreak would be faster than the four months it took to mostly end the 2003 global outbreak of SARS, where doctors could only isolate patients and trace suspect cases. With smallpox, Fukuda said countries could quickly vaccinate people in surrounding areas and that drugs could be sent to treat patients.

Fukuda said many rich countries like the U.S. have their own smallpox vaccine stockpiles. WHO also has at least 30 million doses for poor countries in case the virus re-emerges, but that supply uses older vaccines that can trigger AIDS in people who have HIV.

David Evans, a smallpox expert at the University of Alberta, who was part of the WHO team that inspected the U.S. and Russian labs holding smallpox several years ago, says he doubts the virus could escape from either facility. The viruses are kept at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology in Novosibirsk, Siberia.

Laboratories where smallpox is kept have the highest possible containment measures. Scientists who work with the virus use fingerprint or retinal scans to get inside, wear a full-body suit including gloves and goggles, and shower with strong disinfectant before leaving the lab and taking off the suit. The U.S. smallpox viruses, which include samples from Britain, Japan and the Netherlands, are stored in liquid nitrogen.

Rumors about stockpiles in countries like Iraq and North Korea have never been proven, and Evans said it would be too difficult to experiment with smallpox and keep it a secret. "The nations I would worry about, weird places run by odd dictators, they're just not capable of doing this stuff," he said.

Evans thinks it's unlikely terrorists would resort to smallpox in a biological attack. "If you want to disrupt countries, there are lots of easier ways to do it than to experiment with something so dangerous," he said.

Multi-state accord would reduce tobacco sales to minors

WASHINGTON: The companies that own Circle K, Dairymart and On The Run stores reached an agreement on Tuesday with 39 state attorneys general to curb tobacco sales to minors.

The multi-state effort will result in comprehensive training for store employees and independent compliance checks as some 250 stores.

"Many adult smokers start their habit at an early age," Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said in a statement announcing the deal. "By preventing teens' access to cigarettes, we're working to deter them from picking up this deadly habit." (Reuters)

Multi-state accord would reduce tobacco sales to minors

WASHINGTON: The companies that own Circle K, Dairymart and On The Run stores reached an agreement on Tuesday with 39 state attorneys general to curb tobacco sales to minors.

The multi-state effort will result in comprehensive training for store employees and independent compliance checks as some 250 stores.

"Many adult smokers start their habit at an early age," Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said in a statement announcing the deal. "By preventing teens' access to cigarettes, we're working to deter them from picking up this deadly habit." (Reuters)

Do video games make kids eat more?

Do video games make kids eat more? NEW YORK: An hour spent playing video games may make teenage boys eat more over the rest of the day, a small study suggests.

The study, of 22 normal-weight teens, found that the boys ate a bigger lunch when they had a pre-meal video game, versus an hour spent relaxing. And they did not make up for the extra bites by burning more calories through gaming, or by eating less later in the day.

On average, the boys downed 163 calories more on the day when they played video games, researchers report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Exactly what that means for video gamers' waistlines is unknown. But the findings add to studies that have linked kids' screen time -- from TV and computers -- to the odds of being overweight.

While those studies observed patterns, and do not prove cause-and-effect, the current study actually tested the idea that something about video-gaming itself might affect eating habits, explained lead researcher Jean-Philippe Chaput.

It's not clear why boys ate more on game day, according to Chaput, who researches obesity and lifestyle at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute in Ottawa, Canada.

"We didn't see an increase in hunger," he told, adding that neither the boys' self-ratings of hunger nor their levels of appetite hormones appeared to be affected by playing video games.

Instead, Chaput speculated that there is a subtle "mental-stress effect," and eating food may satisfy the brain's need for a "reward."

"And most of the food we'd want," Chaput said, "would be sugary and fatty."

He noted that in past research, he has found a similar effect of computer work on calorie intake.

For the current study, Chaput's team had the teenage boys come to a research lab on two separate days: on one morning, they played a soccer video game for an hour, followed by lunch; on another morning, they sat quietly for an hour before lunchtime.

The boys then went home and kept a record of what they ate for the rest of the day.

Overall, Chaput's team found, the teens spent more energy when they played video games than when relaxing. But their food intake more than compensated for the energy they burned that day, netting them an extra 163 calories.

There are still many questions -- including whether findings from the research lab translate into the real world.

Chaput speculated that the number of extra calories could be even greater in real life, where kids often spend hours playing video games in a day, and may eat junk food while they play.

On the other hand, it's not clear if the extra calories seen in this study are an "acute effect" that would fade if someone played video games regularly, according to Chaput.

But if video games do regularly affect how kids eat, he said, it would be concerning. Even though an extra 163 calories "sounds minor," Chaput said, "if it is chronic, it could have a major effect over the years." (Reuters)

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Do video games make kids eat more?

Do video games make kids eat more? NEW YORK: An hour spent playing video games may make teenage boys eat more over the rest of the day, a small study suggests.

The study, of 22 normal-weight teens, found that the boys ate a bigger lunch when they had a pre-meal video game, versus an hour spent relaxing. And they did not make up for the extra bites by burning more calories through gaming, or by eating less later in the day.

On average, the boys downed 163 calories more on the day when they played video games, researchers report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Exactly what that means for video gamers' waistlines is unknown. But the findings add to studies that have linked kids' screen time -- from TV and computers -- to the odds of being overweight.

While those studies observed patterns, and do not prove cause-and-effect, the current study actually tested the idea that something about video-gaming itself might affect eating habits, explained lead researcher Jean-Philippe Chaput.

It's not clear why boys ate more on game day, according to Chaput, who researches obesity and lifestyle at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute in Ottawa, Canada.

"We didn't see an increase in hunger," he told, adding that neither the boys' self-ratings of hunger nor their levels of appetite hormones appeared to be affected by playing video games.

Instead, Chaput speculated that there is a subtle "mental-stress effect," and eating food may satisfy the brain's need for a "reward."

"And most of the food we'd want," Chaput said, "would be sugary and fatty."

He noted that in past research, he has found a similar effect of computer work on calorie intake.

For the current study, Chaput's team had the teenage boys come to a research lab on two separate days: on one morning, they played a soccer video game for an hour, followed by lunch; on another morning, they sat quietly for an hour before lunchtime.

The boys then went home and kept a record of what they ate for the rest of the day.

Overall, Chaput's team found, the teens spent more energy when they played video games than when relaxing. But their food intake more than compensated for the energy they burned that day, netting them an extra 163 calories.

There are still many questions -- including whether findings from the research lab translate into the real world.

Chaput speculated that the number of extra calories could be even greater in real life, where kids often spend hours playing video games in a day, and may eat junk food while they play.

On the other hand, it's not clear if the extra calories seen in this study are an "acute effect" that would fade if someone played video games regularly, according to Chaput.

But if video games do regularly affect how kids eat, he said, it would be concerning. Even though an extra 163 calories "sounds minor," Chaput said, "if it is chronic, it could have a major effect over the years." (Reuters)

CHECK IT OUT MOST FUNNY VIDEOS OF YOUTUBE