Bone-weakening disease making a comeback
Childhood rickets a bone-softening disease that had become so rare the government stopped keeping statistics on it is making a comeback, in part because some youngsters are not getting enough sunlight, health officials say.
Rickets, a vitamin D deficiency that causes bones to soften and bend and often results in bowlegs, was once a major health problem. The addition of vitamin D to milk in the 1930s virtually eliminated the disease.
But health officials said Thursday that health departments across the country are seeing a resurgence.
The government attributes the comeback to the popularity of milk substitutes like soy that lack certain nutrients; the failure to supplement breast milk with vitamin D; and a lack of childhood exposure to sunlight. Sunlight stimulates the body to produce vitamin D.
The resurgence has been seen particularly among children breast-fed by black mothers. Dark-skinned people absorb less sunlight.
Muscle relaxant taken off market
A potent muscle relaxant used in hospitals was pulled off the market Thursday after its maker learned of five deaths linked to the drug, called Raplon.
The voluntary withdrawal by manufacturer Organon Inc. makes Raplon the 12th drug pulled off the market since 1997.
Surgeons inject Raplon before inserting breathing tubes into patients' throats. It typically was used for short surgical procedures because it wears off quickly.
The FDA warned when it approved Raplon about a rare side effect an airway spasm blocking normal breathing. Clinical studies suggested these bronchospasms, which can range from mild to severe, occurred in 3.2 percent of patients, but all were successfully treated. Still, the FDA strongly warned that Raplon should be used only by experienced physicians with resuscitation equipment on hand.
1 strain of polio declared officially wiped out
One of three strains of polio has apparently been wiped out a milestone in the global effort to eradicate the paralyzing disease.
The World Health Organization said Thursday that the global network of laboratories that tracks the disease reported no new cases of Type 2 polio in 2000. The last recorded cases were in India in 1999.
The Americas were declared polio-free in 1994, and the disease has been eliminated in Europe. Still, more than 2,800 cases were confirmed last year in Southeast Asia, Africa and the Mediterranean, where war, poverty and other problems have hurt efforts to vaccinate children.
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