Health briefs

San Diego

Smallpox pill promising

U.S. scientists developing a pill for smallpox in case the deadly virus is used in a bioterrorist attack reported promising test results Wednesday.

Experts have said it would be impractical to rely on the smallpox vaccine in an emergency because they would not be able to immunize everybody in time.

Scientists discovered five years ago that a drug used for an AIDS complication could kill the smallpox virus in a test tube.

But the drug, cidofovir, has serious side effects and therefore has been considered impractical for fighting a bioterror outbreak.

A pill derived from cidofovir shows promise in mice, but more tests are needed before human trials can begin.

Washington, D.C.

Eye problems rising

The aging of the large baby boom generation could mean a doubling in the number of blind Americans because growing older is a major factor in developing eye disease, a National Eye Institute study says.

Regular eye exams could help to prevent much of that vision loss, the lead author of the report, Dr. David S. Friedman, said Wednesday.

“If nothing is done and we just go on the way we’re going now, we’re going to have a massive increase in the number of visually impaired and blind in America,” said Friedman, a professor at the Wilmer Eye Institute of Johns Hopkins University.

The study lists four primary threats to vision: Diabetic retinopathy, a common complication of diabetes; age-related macular degeneration, which affects the part of the retina responsible for sharp central vision; cataracts, a clouding of the lens of the eye; and glaucoma, which causes gradual damage to the optic nerve that carries visual information from the eye to the brain.