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(CBS News) Do antidepressants work? Since the introduction of Prozac in the 1980s, prescriptions for antidepressants have soared 400 percent, with 17 million Americans currently taking some form of the drug. But how much good is the medication itself doing? "The difference between the effect of a placebo and the effect of an antidepressant is minimal for most people," says Harvard scientist Irving Kirsch. Will Kirsch's research, and the work of others, change the $11.3 billion antidepressant industry? Lesley Stahl investigates.

excerpt- For several years, scientists have tried and failed to determine the cause of the illness, which locals say has killed hundreds of youngsters. What they do know is that the disease affects only children and gradually devastates its victims through debilitating seizures, stunted growth, wasted limbs, mental disabilities and sometimes starvation.

Aliskiren has been sold under the brand name Rasilez in Europe and Tekturna in the U.S. since 2007. EMA said it has ruled that aliskiren be "contraindicated," or not prescribed, to diabetic patients or to people with kidney problems who are also taking older hypertension drugs known as ACE inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers. Data suggest a risk of adverse outcomes in such patients, including hypotension, stroke and changes in renal function, including acute renal failure, the EMA said. Novartis wrote to physicians world-wide then recommending that patients with Type 2 diabetes shouldn't be treated with aliskiren, or combination products...

A leading group of U.S. doctors is trying to tackle the costly problem of excessive medical testing, hoping to avoid more government intervention in how they practice. The American College of Physicians (ACP), the largest U.S. medical specialty group, is rolling out guidelines to help doctors better identify when patients should screen for specific diseases and when they can be spared the cost, and potentially invasive procedures that follow. Many individual U.S. medical centers have launched their own efforts to build a protocol of patient care in fields such as diabetes or obstetrics, but the ACP effort has the potential...

Jaroslav Flegr is no kook. And yet, for years, he suspected his mind had been taken over by parasites that had invaded his brain. So the prolific biologist took his science-fiction hunch into the lab. What he’s now discovering will startle you. Could tiny organisms carried by house cats be creeping into our brains, causing everything from car wrecks to schizophrenia? No one would accuse Jaroslav Flegr of being a conformist. A self-described “sloppy dresser,” the 63-year-old Czech scientist has the contemplative air of someone habitually lost in thought, and his still-youthful, square-jawed face is framed by frizzy red hair...

Yaws, a disease that penicillin nearly eradicated 40 years ago, has been re-emerging in rural tropical Africa, Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands — but a new study has shown that a modern drug is as effective against the disease as penicillin was. Yaws is a close relative of syphilis — both are caused by a spirochete bacterium, though syphilis is usually transmitted by sex and starts as a genital sore, while yaws is passed by skin contact with its usually painless skin sores. They resemble raspberries, and one name for the disease is “framboise,” French for raspberry. It is...

A skin cancer drug has reversed Alzheimer's in mice - raising hope that it could be similarly successful against the incurable disease in humans. Now families of Alzheimer's sufferers are now bombarding physicians with requests for the drug, called bexarotene and marketed as Targretin. In research published in the journal Science, mice were engineered to exhibit Alzheimer's symptoms - such as forgetfulness and rapid cell death. After they took the drug, they became instantly smarter, performing better Researchers at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio added that plaque in the mice brains that was causing Alzheimer's had started to...

NEW YORK – A six-year-old Bronx boy died after his father gave him methadone, believing the liquid was cough medicine. The boy's mother, 36-year-old Raquel DeLeon, hid her methadone inside a DayQuil bottle in their apartment on East 147th Street in the south Bronx. On Saturday, when Carlos Rios Jr. fell ill, his father gave him a teaspoon of the liquid, believing it was cough medicine, police said. Soon after taking the dose, the boy complained of dizziness. His father told him to lie down, but grew concerned after his son became unresponsive. The father immediately called 911 and medics...

FDA Drug Safety Communication: Clostridium difficile-associated diarrhea can be associated with stomach acid drugs known as proton pump inhibitors (PPIs)  Safety AnnouncementAdditional Information for Patients and ConsumersAdditional Information for Healthcare ProfessionalsData Summary (Tables) Safety Announcement [02-08-2012] The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is informing the public that the use of stomach acid drugs known as proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) may be associated with an increased risk of Clostridium difficile–associated diarrhea (CDAD). A diagnosis of CDAD should be considered for patients taking PPIs who develop diarrhea that does not improve. .benefit { font-size: medium; font-weight: bold; color: #f9e4bb; }Patients should immediately...

Nancy Brinker, the founder of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure, has admitted in her first public comments since the organization reversed its contentious decision to stop funding Planned Parenthood, that she “mishandled” the recent controversy and “made some mistakes.” In a note sent Wednesday night to Sally Quinn of The Washington Post in response to an open letter from Quinn, Brinker wrote, “Sally, you know that we would never, ever, leave women unserved, especially the low-income, uninsured and underinsured women who are relying on us more than ever in an uncertain economy.”

Alzheimer’s disease seems to spread like an infection from brain cell to brain cell, two new studies in mice have found. But instead of viruses or bacteria, what is being spread is a distorted protein known as tau. The surprising finding answers a longstanding question and has immediate implications for developing treatments, researchers said. And they suspect that other degenerative brain diseases like Parkinson’s may spread in a similar way. Alzheimer’s researchers have long known that dying, tau-filled cells first emerge in a small area of the brain where memories are made and stored. The disease then slowly moves outward...

Strain of MRSA from the U.S. causes large boils and is resistant to several front-line antibiotics Survives on surfaces so can be picked up on public transport A flesh-eating form of pneumonia that is easily passed between healthy people on public transport is spreading across the UK, experts have warned.

One of the most common questions that I am asked from prospective survival medics is “What antibiotics should I stockpile and how do I use them?” There isn’t a 60 second answer to this. Actually, there isn’t a 60 MINUTE answer to this, but anyone that is interested in preserving the health of their loved ones in a collapse will have to learn what antibiotics will work in a particular situation. It’s important to start off by saying that you will not want to indiscriminately use antibiotics for every minor ailment that comes along. In a collapse, the medic is...

Pay Attention to Your Ticker Heart attacks don't always strike out of the blue -- there are many symptoms we can watch for in the days and weeks leading up to an attack. But the symptoms may not be the ones we expect. And they can be different in men and women, and different still in older adults. Last year, for example, a landmark study by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Institute found that 95 percent of women who'd had heart attacks reported experiencing symptoms in the weeks and months before...

A suburban Chicago man accidentally shot a 3.25in (8.25cm) nail into his skull but is recovering after doctors successfully removed it from the centre of his brain. Dante Autullo, 34, was in his workshop when a nail gun recoiled near his head. But he had no idea the nail had entered his brain until the next day, when he began feeling nauseous.

Red-Wine Researcher Charged With 'Photoshop' Fraud Robert Lowes   January 13, 2012 — A University of Connecticut researcher known for touting the health benefits of red wine is guilty of 145 counts offabricating and falsifying data with image-editing software, according to a 3-year university investigation made public Wednesday. The researcher, Dipak K. Das, PhD, is a director of the university's Cardiovascular Research Center (CRC) and a professor in the Department of Surgery. The university stated in a press release thatit has frozen all externally funded research in Dr. Das's lab and turned down $890,000 in federal research grants awarded to him....

According to Gault, you never have to buy any over-the-counter medications at full price if you follow a few smart shopping rules. Here are her top five rules for buying medicine cheaply: 1. Generic supermarket or drugstore brands don’t beat warehouse brands in terms of price. **** 2. Combining deals on name-brand drugs at supermarkets or drugstores can match, even beat, warehouse prices. **** 3. Save your coupons. **** 4. Use coupons on smaller packages. **** 5. Look for online coupons – but be careful.

Dr. Daniel Mascarenhas has a heart for recycling. The local cardiologist, is part of a study to remove pacemakers from deceased bodies and supply them to impoverished patients in Bombay, India. Pacemakers can cost upwards of $6,000 and defibrillators can reach pricetags of $27,000. Donations from participating area funeral homes eliminate that cost. “In the city hospital in Bombay, if you don’t have something the patient can afford — they’re dead,” Mascarenhas says. He is a partner in Coventry Cardiology Associates, with offices in Easton and Phillipsburg, and a Clinical Professor of Medicine at Drexel University. “These people are so...

Three years ago, Kristie Salerno Kent, a singer-songwriter, was standing in a security line at the airport on her way home from a gig when her legs went numb. “From the waist down, it felt as though I was trying to walk through a bowl of oatmeal,” said the 38-year-old musician, who has multiple sclerosis... --snip-- The medication she was taking to prevent these attacks was losing its effect, so her doctor suggested she switch to Tysabri, one of the newer, more potent “disease-modifying drugs,” which reduce the severity and frequency of relapses. She also began taking Ampyra, which early...

I went recently to San Francisco to give a talk to a conference of scientists. The scientists were experts in gathering together mountains of biological data—genome sequences, results of experiments and clinical trials—and figuring out how to make them useful: turning them into new diagnostic tests, for example, or a drug for cancer. The invitation was an honor, but a nerve-wracking one. As a journalist, I had no genome scan to offer the audience. We science writers do have one ace in the hole, though. Instead of being lashed to a lab bench for years, carrying out experiments to illuminate...

Sam Schmid, an Arizona college student believed to be brain dead and poised to be an organ donor, miraculously recovered just hours before doctors were considering taking him off life support. Schmid, a junior and business major at the University of Arizona, was critically wounded in an Oct. 19 five-car accident in Tucson. The 21-year-old's brain injuries were so severe that the local hospital could not treat him. He was airlifted to the Barrow Neurological Institute at St. Joseph's Medical Center in Phoenix, where specialists performed surgery for a life-threatening aneurysm. As hospital officials began palliative care and broached the...

A jealous husband is facing life in prison after chopping off his wife's fingers because she began studying for a degree without his permission. Rafiqul Islam, 30, blindfolded his wife Hawa Akhter, 21, and taped her mouth, telling her he was going to give her a surprise present. Instead he made her hold out her hand and cut off all five fingers. One of his relatives then threw Ms Akhter's fingers in the dustbin to ensure doctors could not reattach them. Mr Islam, who is a migrant worker in the United Arab Emirates, had warned his wife there would 'severe...

TAU engineers an easy-to-use solution to make hospitals saferAccording to the World Health Organization, antibiotic-resistant bacteria are one of the top three threats to human health. Patients in hospitals are especially at risk, with almost 100,000 deaths due to infection every year in the U.S. alone. Now Dr. Udi Qimron of the Department of Clinical Microbiology and Immunology at Tel Aviv University's Sackler Faculty of Medicine has developed an efficient and cost-effective liquid solution that can help fight antibiotic-resistant bacteria and keep more patients safe from life-threatening infections. The solution is based on specially designed bacteriophages — viruses that infect...

Years ago, Charlie, a highly respected orthopedist and a mentor of mine, found a lump in his stomach. He had a surgeon explore the area, and the diagnosis was pancreatic cancer. This surgeon was one of the best in the country. He had even invented a new procedure for this exact cancer that could triple a patient’s five-year-survival odds—from 5 percent to 15 percent—albeit with a poor quality of life. Charlie was uninterested. He went home the next day, closed his practice, and never set foot in a hospital again. He focused on spending time with family and feeling as...

More than a decade ago, in hopes of advancing research on the rare genetic disease that afflicts her children, Sharon Terry let two different researchers draw their blood for study. But when she asked for the results of the investigations, the scientists gave her a startling response. Information generated from her own children's DNA, they said, didn't belong to her. "It's my data," says Ms. Terry, who is now president and chief executive of Genetic Alliance, a network of organizations that do research, advocacy and education around genetics, in Washington, D.C. "But it gets locked away in some database that...

…is not that it will cost too much, or even that it will worsen our medical care, although both of those things are true. The real problem with socialized medicine–the eventual establishment of which is the purpose of Obamacare, according to Barack Obama–is that it will destroy our freedom. Mark Steyn has written that government medicine alters forever the relationship between state and citizen: once you are dependent on the government for your health care, you are no longer a freeborn citizen. You are the subject of an all-powerful state.

Too many people in Tennessee are asking for antibiotics and too many doctors are prescribing them — a practice that renders once-powerful drugs ineffective against infections, according to a recently released study......“Unless we do something really radical and different, we’re going to lose these drugs,” said Dr. Ramanan Laxminarayan, an epidemiologist and economist in Washington, D.C., who was a co-author of the study. “It’s not like we’re going to. We already have in many instances and things are just getting worse...” (Excerpted) http://www.tennessean.com/article/20111118/NEWS07/311180046/Tenn-ranks-3rd-antibiotic-use

John J. Cannell, M.D writes that he receives numerous questions from individuals who ask, "My doctor prescribed Drisdol, is that OK?" Drisdol is vitamin D2 in a form that doctors write prescriptions for. Sun exposure does not produce vitamin D2 in the body, the vitamin is produced by plant matter and irradiating fungus. When consumed, numerous metabolic forms of D2 can be traced in the body. According to some studies, vitamin D3, which is produced by the skin, is more powerful, hence more effective at raising blood levels compared with vitamin D2, however, some studies say they are equal. Few...

Obama's Half-Billion-Dollar Crony Drug DealThe Solyndra scandal has a parallel in the pharmaceutical industry. What do you get when you mix Democratic fat-cat donations, Big Labor favors, pharmaceutical lobbying, and Beltway business as usual? Answer: another toxic half-billion-dollar Barack Obama–approved crony deal. Move over, Solyndra. Here comes Siga-gate.This latest Chicago-style payoff on your dime involves a dubious smallpox drug backed by a liberal billionaire investor, along with a former union boss who was one of the White House’s most frequent visitors. They’re among the “1 percent� but with 100 percent immunity from the selectively outraged Occupier mobs that purport to...

Patient: Wayne, Bruce DOB: 2/16/1971 Occupation: Industrialist Insurance: Self-pay Emergency Contact: Dick Grayson, XXX-269-9637 Interval History: Patient was seen for his last annual physical approximately one year ago. Since that time he has had numerous visits for acute illnesses or injuries, generally accompanied either by his companion Mr. Grayson or Alfred, a senior member of his household staff. These recent maladies appear to be in keeping with the pattern that has emerged over the past several years, in which significant medical problems are associated with odd or incongruous explanations. Most recently, patient was seen for numerous areas of lower extremity...

I have been hit by a PSC Medicare audit by a bounty hunter firm- Trust Solutions of Milwaukee. I am lawyered up, any suggestions?

Enlarge Image Responder. Tumors in a patient's lung (top), lymph nodes, and liver shrank over 8 months after he received an epigenetic drug combination. He is alive 2 years later. Credit: Adapted from R. A. Juergens et al., Cancer Discovery (December 2011), © American Association for Cancer Research A novel approach to treating lung cancer that aims to switch on dormant tumor-blocking genes has shown promise in a small clinical trial. The 45 patients on average lived a couple months longer than they would have with no treatment, and two patients' tumors almost or completely disappeared. The results suggest that...

A leading pioneer in the use of adult stem cells to treat life-threatening diseases is calling the Vatican “a very powerful and supportive ally to helping advance this technology.� Dr. Robert J.Hariri, founder and chief executive officer of Celgene Cellular Therapeutics is a U.S. neurosurgeon and trauma specialist recognized for his discovery of pluripotent stem cells (cells that can differentiate to become nearly any cell of the body) from placenta. Dr. Hariri spoke to Vatican Radio after delivering a speech on his research on adult stem cells in the treatment of autoimmune diseases at a three day Vatican sponsored conference...

The rules of how to treat cardiac arrest are being re-written at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. Technology, new drug treatments, conventional CPR and the use of hypothermia are now being coordinated with great affect - in one case reviving a man who'd been clinically dead for more than an hour. (Video Transcript) Rodney Whitmore is exercising in the physical therapy wing at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota. It's part of his recovery regimen. Two months ago in his farm house, Rodney went into cardiac arrest. His heart stopped pumping blood and supplying oxygen to his body. Statistically, Rodney's...

...What that basically means is that in an emergency situation, such as a declaration of martial law, chipping stations will be immediately deployed. It will be for you and your family, and will ensure that you’ll receive emergency rations and other services in the event of a serious catastrophe. Next, they’ll require all government healthcare recipients to be chipped in order to prevent rampant fraud. An off-shoot may be to implement nationwide chipping programs for those receiving any government benefits including social security, Medicaid, Medicare, and Supplemental Nutritional Assistance. Prisoners and even detainees will be part of the first adopter...

Other professional groups are pitching in to help Perry. The Texas Medical Association’s political action committee recently endorsed him for president, and its members are helping him raise money and make connections with medical groups in other states. Dr. John Gill, a Dallas orthopedic surgeon, said helping Perry tap into medical associations in a state like Florida could help him in the GOP primary. “The medical community is well aware of what’s happening in Texas with tort reform” that strictly limited medical malpractice judgments, Gill said. “Most Republicans don’t like lawsuits and excessive litigation. … We’re trying to help him...

Enlarge Image Heart attack. Following a big meal, oily nutrients in the bloodstream of Burmese pythons (shown) spur massive growth of their hearts. Credit: Stephen M. Secor At the end of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, the titular villain undergoes a literal change of heart. His blood-pumping organ swells to three times its prior size. The ticker of the Burmese python (Python molurus) similarly balloons, but the cause isn't Christmas cheer—it's a big meal. A new study of recently fed snakes suggests that a precise mixture of fatty acids in the blood drives this cardiac growth, unveiling...

For decades the amyloid hypothesis has dominated the research field in Alzheimer’s disease. The theory describes how an increase in secreted beta-amyloid peptides leads to the formation of plaques, toxic clusters of damaged proteins between cells, which eventually result in neurodegeneration. Scientists at Lund University, Sweden, have now presented a study that turns this premise on its head. The research group’s data offers an opposite hypothesis, suggesting that it is in fact the neurons’ inability to secrete beta-amyloid that is at the heart of pathogenesis in Alzheimer’s disease. The study, published in the October issue of the Journal of Neuroscience,...

(THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - Sin Chew Daily reported that a Taiwanese woman was shocked when a gynaecologist told her that she had testicles. The woman, 34, decided to consult a specialist after experiencing pain in her genital area. It was her first time seeking treatment from a gynaecologist although she had never experienced menstruation in her life. The check-up also showed that the woman did not have a uterus. When asked why she had not sought treatment or medical advice about her menstrual problem, the woman was lost for an answer.

Two of the holy grails of medicine - stem cell technology and precision gene therapy - have been united for the first time in humans, say scientists.It means patients with a genetic disease could, one day, be treated with their own cells. A study in Nature corrected a mutation in stem cells made from a patient with a liver disease. Researchers said this was a "critical step" towards devising treatments, but safety tests were still needed. At the moment, stem cells created from a patient with a genetic illness cannot be used to cure the disease as those cells would...

In the October, 2011 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Australian researchers report the outcome of a study which suggests site-specific protective effects of various fruits and vegetables against the risk of colorectal cancer. The finding may help explain inconsistent results from other studies which sought to examine the effects of plant foods against the cancer disease. Lin Fritschi, PhD and colleagues at the University of Western Australia compared 918 colorectal cancer patients to 1,021 controls who had no history of the disease. Questionnaires completed by the participants were analyzed for the frequency of consumption of 38...

Transcript JEFFREY BROWN: Men shouldn't be routinely tested for prostate cancer. That was the recommendation today of an influential government panel that looked at whether PSA tests can extend lives by detecting cancer earlier.The tests measure levels of a protein made in the prostate. But the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force said they do more harm than good, including unnecessary biopsies, surgery, radiation and impotence. The panel concluded that -- quote -- "The common perception that early detection prolongs lives is not supported by the scientific evidence."Last year, more than 217,000 American men were diagnosed with prostate cancer; 32,000 died...

Helicopter RescueNew York gets it right. At a little after 3 p.m. on a warm October afternoon at the intersection of the FDR Drive and 34th Street, New York’s finest and bravest, and our Office of Emergency Management, came together with our top trauma center at Bellevue only a few blocks away and participated in an old-fashioned rescue that saved four of the five lives that were in danger.I was there and saw it.The helicopter — containing a pilot, two British tourists and their daughter, and the daughter’s Australian friend — lost power while ascending from the 34th Street heliport...

Enlarge Image FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: Beutler, Hoffmann and Steinman Credit: Mosimann for Balzan, Rockefeller University Press Three scientists who studied how the immune system kicks into action share this year's Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. One-half of the $1.45 million award is shared by Bruce Beutler of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, and Jules Hoffmann of the University of Strasbourg in France, who unraveled crucial details of how the innate immune system—the broad, first-line defense against microbial pathogens—is activated. The other half goes to Ralph Steinman of Rockefeller University in New York City, for...

Predicts advanced diseaseMiami Beach, Fla., October 2, 2011 – More than three-quarters of cancer patients have insufficient levels of vitamin D (25-hydroxy-vitamin D) and the lowest levels are associated with more advanced cancer, according to a study presented on October 2, 2011, at the 53rd Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO). "Until recently, studies have not investigated whether vitamin D has an impact on the prognosis or course of cancer. Researchers are just starting to examine how vitamin D may impact specific features of cancer, such as the stage or extent of tumor spread, prognosis, recurrence...

UCI study shows promise of metabolic therapy for autoimmune diseasesA glucosamine-like dietary supplement suppresses the damaging autoimmune response seen in multiple sclerosis, according to a UC Irvine study. UCI’s Dr. Michael Demetriou, Ani Grigorian and others found that oral N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc), which is similar to but more effective than the widely available glucosamine, inhibited the growth and function of abnormal T-cells that in MS incorrectly direct the immune system to attack and break down central nervous system tissue that insulates nerves.

Patients with terminal cancer should not be given life-extending drugs, doctors said yesterday. The treatments give false hope and are too costly for the public purse, they warned. The group of 37 cancer experts, including British specialist Karol Sikora, claimed a 'culture of excess' had led doctors to 'overtreat, overdiagnose and overpromise'. Campaigners dismissed the report, saying it was wrong to write off cancer victims. 'I would hardly call this type of treatment futile,' said Rose Woodward, of the James Whale Fund for Kidney Cancer.

Children with severe therapy-resistant asthma (STRA) may have poorer lung function and worse symptoms compared to children with moderate asthma, due to lower levels of vitamin D in their blood, according to researchers in London. Lower levels of vitamin D may cause structural changes in the airway muscles of children with STRA, making breathing more difficult. The study provides important new evidence for possible treatments for the condition. The findings were published online ahead of the print edition of the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. "This study clearly demonstrates that low levels of vitamin...

A technique that alters T cells has been shown to reduce the amount of virus in infected people. For the first time, researchers have shown that a cell-based therapy for HIV/AIDS can reduce the amount of virus in infected people. The breakthrough—big news for researchers, who have struggled for decades to create vaccines and cell-based therapies for HIV—was announced on Sunday at the 51st Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in Chicago. To date, the sole treatment for HIV has been multidrug regimens that prolong life but never eliminate the virus. Sangamo BioSciences of Richmond, California, says it has...

The global economic impact of the five leading chronic diseases -- cancer, diabetes, mental illness, heart disease, and respiratory disease -- could reach $47 trillion over the next 20 years, according to a study by the World Economic Forum (WEF). The estimated cumulative output loss caused by the illnesses, which together already kill more than 36 million people a year and are predicted to kill tens of millions more in future, represents around 4 percent of annual global GDP over the coming two decades, the study said. "This is not a health issue, this is an economic issue -- it...