The National Institutes of Health (NIH) panel concluded Wednesday that a vaginal birth after a caesarean, known as VBAC, is relatively safe and should be available to women who want to try to deliver vaginally. The panel, which was made up of independent experts in the fields of child health and maternal health, heard testimonies and scientific presentations for three days on the subject of VBAC. They found that both VBAC and planned caesarean sections pose health risks and that women should be offered more of a choice when choosing how to deliver their child. They say that non-medical reasons should go to the wayside when it comes to childbirth. These reasons include hospital policy, liability and doctor’s preferences.

Caesarean sections account for 31.8% of all births today, one factor causing that percentage is the policy that calls for women to only have births by caesarean section after having their initial caesarean section.

One of the risks for a VBAC is that the uterus can tear along the scar caused by a former caesarean section during delivery which can be life threatening. Because of this factor, in 1999 the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommended doctors not allow VBAC to be available unless the delivery room was equipped with surgical and anesthesia services in case of an emergency. Because of this risk, 30% of hospitals surveyed nationwide stopped offering VBAC.

Also brought to light during this three day conference are the concerns of repeated caesarean sections which include placenta-related complications which can lead to dangerous maternal bleeding, pre-term birth and other risks which increase steeply with each subsequent caesarean section.

Studies show that around 75% of women opting for a VBAC for a single birth delivery had a successful childbirth.

Experts Urge More Childbirth Choices

This study was conducted on men who already had aggressive cancer and have failed all other treatment options. Further studies are going to be conducted on men with less aggressive forms of this cancer. Researchers are hoping that men who take this drug at an earlier stage will have a much longer life expectancy.

Cabazitaxel is a derivative of the currently used drug Taxotere. Taxotere is used as a last resort to treat aggressive prostate cancer. The draw back of this drug is that the body processes it too quickly, and the patient does not receive the full effect of treatment. Cabazitaxel is a modification of this drug that stays in the system much longer providing the patient extended treatment.

Further testing will be done to see if the same results are achieved. Once testing is completed the drug manufacturer will apply to the FDA for release of the medication.

New Prostate Cancer Drug Can Extend Life Expectancy

Before the new ASA recommendations it was always said that when a male reaches the age of 50 that they should start getting tested for prostate cancer and that it should be checked every one to two years. Now the ASA are saying that men should start getting tested at 40 years of age and have the test done every 10 years. These new findings have sparked a huge debate amongst the medical community.

Dr. Peter Carroll, the chair of the study by the ASA, states that while being tested is something that should be decided upon by the patient and the physician, being able to check the prostate at a young age will be able to determine if a person will likely be a candidate for prostate cancer in the future. Again, the ASA has acknowledged that any kind of testing should be consulted and agreed upon by the patient and the doctor.

The antagonists of the new study are saying that early testing and overtesting of men will not have any bearing on being able to detect if prostate cancer can be a problem. The National Cancer Institute has even gone on record and stated that the new study has no concrete evidence that early testing will prove beneficial.

The NCI says they fear that overtesting will give a false impression that there is an epidemic of prostate cancer in the United States.

New prostate cancer screening guidelines unveiled

In a press interview, U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, chair member Dr. Ned Calonge said “This is an encouraging message. There’s hope for successful treatment, and we hope that parents will ask their pediatrician if their child needs intervention.”

Children are considered obese when their body mass index or BMI is recorded as being in the 95th percentile or higher. Currently 1/3 of U.S. children fall into this category. Childhood obesity has been linked to a number of health issues including diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

The new guidelines are based on the belief that early changes in behavior are successful in preventing future health related issues. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force study concluded that obese children who participate in moderate to high-intensity weight-management programs for a minimum of twenty-five hours over a six-month period had the most improvement in their weight.

An article regarding the study and the new guidelines has been released in the current issue of the journal Pediatrics.

Doctor's Encouraged To Increase Treatment For Obese Children

The recall revolves around a packaging defect which could cause a bacteria build up for the children who happen to take it. These kind of mistakes can be extremely dangerous because some new mother could just be heading to the store and pick up some HappyTot only for her child to potentially become violently ill.

Many companies who have this kind of thing happen often cannot survive the bad publicity they get from the press coverage of the event. It hasn’t been determined yet when the Chief Executive Officer of Happy Tot will be removed their post or whether any other executives will lose their jobs over the matter. These kind of things do happen and it explains to many people out there why we have the Food & Drug Administration in place in order to protect our food supply.

Strangely, some men have been posting the color of their female partner’s bra. The Detroit Free Press has deliberately planted a rumor that it is women in Detroit who have started the, what color is your bra, attack to raise Breast Cancer awareness.

On Facebook blog, BellyBeyond says that it got this anonymous message. To see if you too were victimized by this mysterious prankster, the exact words according to the blogger were: “Some fun is going on…. just write the color of your bra in your status. Just the color, nothing else. It will be neat to see if this will spread the wings of breast cancer awareness. It will be fun to see how long it takes before people wonder why all the girls have a color in their status… Haha .”

It is rather annoying for those dealing with breast cancer issues to see such a serious illness that can also affect men, by the way, being bandied about the Internet. What breast cancer awareness does posting the color of your bring?

What's The Deal With The Facebook Bra Color Buzz?

The Centers for Disease Control has done a recent study that has found two antibiotics that expecting mothers take will cause birth defects in their newborns.

The dangerous antibiotics were found to be nitrofuratoins and sulfonamides. These antibiotics are prescribed commonly to women diagnosed with urinary tract infections.

According to the recent study women that partook of these antibiotics while they were pregnant had more of a risk to give birth to babies with fatal malformation of the skull and brain, called anencephaly.

The lead author of the study and geneticist with the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, Krista Crider said “The most important message is that most commonly used antibiotics do not seem to be associated with the birth defects we studied.”

The researchers added that penicillin’s that are quite typical to be prescribed in early pregnancy appears to not cause any type of problems. If a mother who is pregnant and has a bacterial infection, if not taken care of it can cause a problem for the fetus if it is not treated and taken care of so to do away with antibiotics is not a solution, but it should be discussed thoroughly with your doctor.

The antibiotics that were involved in the discovery were noted to have been introduced awhile before the FDA and agency’s required safer, intense testing like they do today to ensure that all medications are safe for pregnant mothers and their babies, according to the AP.

This study can be found in the November issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

Studies done over an 18 year time period involving thousands of Finnish men showed that the link between lower cholesterol levels and cancers were not connected as previously thought.

Researchers and doctors once believed that cholesterol levels and the development of prostate cancer were linked together when in actuality the level of cholesterol in men had no serious effect on whether or not they developed the cancer.

“Our study affirms that lower total cholesterol may be caused by undiagnosed cancer,” Dr. Demetrius Albanes, a senior investigator at the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, said in a statement.

“In terms of a public health message, we found that higher levels of ‘good’ cholesterol seem to be protective for all cancers,” he said.

With such new studies, patients now even have more reasons to watch their cholesterol and ensure that it stays at the proper levels. Besides lowering the risk for heart disease now we can add reducing the risk of cancer to these lists as well. For those with higher cholesterol you can get help lowering it by altering certain aspects of your diet, starting an exercise routine and talking with your doctor about medications that aid in lowering cholesterol levels.

Bliss-76, a follow up study to the successful Bliss-52 study reported by the company last month, confirms the positive findings in the earlier report. The late stage study, which utilizes the drug Benlysta along with steroid therapy, is designed to suppress the individual immune system’s response to lupus. Lupus is an inflammatory disease that prompts the body to attack its own tissue and organs.

The data is said to show that a 10 milligram dose of Benlysta, along with the steroid therapy, resulted in marked improvement in 43 percent of patients, as compared to improvement in only 33 percent of patients who were given a placebo.

Benlysta is expected to gain approval and be on the market by the latter half of 2010. News of the study sent shares of Human Genome Sciences skyrocketing more than 34 percent in morning trading to around $25 per share. Shares had actually traded at more that $26 earlier in the day; levels not seen since early 2002.

The company is expected to present full results from the Bliss-76 study at a conference in spring of 2010.

Man With Lupus

Maydew announced the dreadful news Friday that Hopper has been diagnosed with the disease and is going into treatment for the illness.

KTLA a news affiliate to CNN stated that the actor is being treated at the University of Southern California in a certain special program.

Hopper was admitted into the hospital on September 30 in New York with flu type symptoms and abdominal pains. The next day he was released feelling much better KTLA stated.

The 73 year old was expected to appear in Australia at an exhibition with a collection of his photography and artwork entitled Dennis Hopper And The New Hollywood.

Unfortunatly he had to cancel it and is concentrating on his treatment and getting better.

The exhibition was to celebrate “the work and life of an extraordinary filmmake, artist and key figure in the evolution of America’s clutural scene from the 1950s to today”.

A spokesman for the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Tony Sweeney made a statement on the unfortunate news: “Obviously his health is the number one priority and we wish him a very speedy recovery.”
The actor has had a career for 50 years and is known as the cinema’s “bad boys”.

His first part of his carreer started with Rebel Without a Cause back in 1955, since then he has appeared in many other films including Speed, Blue Velvet, and Easy Rider.

Hopper had just finished shooting the 2nd season of “Crash”. The busy bad boy has around 3 films that are currently in the production process.

Dennis Hopper Making His Prostate Cancer Top Priority: Update