Real-life M*A*S*H on 'Nova'

Here's advance notice of a public television program worth watching. The PBS series "Nova" looks at two Army medical units deployed to the Middle East at the beginning of the war with Iraq in "Life and Death in the War Zone."

The press release describes medical personnel "beset by constant ethical dilemmas that pit the teams’ commitment to treat the injured Iraqis against the messy realities of war and in which chance and bureaucratic policy often decide who lives and who dies."

Ear cartilage piercings more likely to get infected

It’s riskier to pierce your ear cartilage than your ear lobe, according to a study in the Feb. 25 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

After a doctor reported treating two newly pierced patients with infected ears, public health agencies in Oregon started an investigation. They tracked the outbreak to an ear-piercing kiosk where both young patients had their ears done. Other stylin’ clients had contracted the bacterial infection, too, and four were hospitalized.

Upper ear cartilage piercings were more likely to be infected than traditional lobe piercings. Read the abstract.

'20/20': Search for female Viagra

ABC News’ "20/20" tonight takes a look at how drug companies are racing to develop a female version of Viagra.

I reported on this topic in October 2002 when one of the drugs for "female sexual arousal disorder" was being tested in Spokane. I interviewed the lead researcher, who, speaking about women with sexual troubles, acknowledged: "Maybe they don't need a new drug. They need a new Steve."

New York author and therapist Leonore Tiefer, who was interviewed for tonight's "20/20," also thinks a purely medical approach to female sexuality misses a big part of the problem. See her web site.

Wait a minute, Mr. Postman

The federal government is thinking about using the U.S. Postal Service to deliver antibiotics from the Strategic National Stockpile directly to homes in the event of bioterrorism.

Read more about the plan.

Chickenpox: To vaccinate or not?

As more states consider requiring schoolchildren to have chickenpox vaccinations, new research finds that the shot’s effectiveness declines significantly after the first year. But vaccinated children who do contract chickenpox tend to have milder cases of the viral infection.

Read the study in the Feb. 18 Journal of the American Medical Association.

And in this coming Sunday’s Spokesman-Review, look for my story on a 10-year-old boy whose chickenpox turned into necrotizing fasciitis, also known as “flesh-eating disease.” Chickenpox complications are rare, but can be grave.

New type of mad cow disease found

Italian scientists have discovered a new strain of prion in the brains of some cows with mad cow disease.

The researchers looked at brain matter from eight cows that had tested positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease). In two of the cows, they found a different type of prion that, at the molecular level, resembles the prion in a subtype of the sporadic form of the always-deadly human illness Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The researchers speculate it could be a sporadic form of mad cow disease. It's unknown whether this new type of mad cow disease could have spread to humans.

The paper will be published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

FDA committee looks at vaccines and bovine materials

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies Advisory Committee is meeting today and tomorrow in Silver Springs, Md., on a number of mad cow-related topics, including the use of materials derived from cattle in the development of vaccines.

You can read what they’re reading at this site.

Feds want hospital abortion records

The Partial Birth Abortion Ban of 2003, signed into law by President Bush in early November, has been challenged in federal courts in San Francisco and New York. Now the U.S. Justice Department, defending the law, is asking that six hospitals turn over patient medical records on abortions. Some of the hospitals are resisting to protect patient privacy. Read the New York Times story.

Has it come to this?

A 71-year-old man told police he robbed a Florida bank to get money to pay his wife’s medical bills. The robbery was at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday. The woman’s doctor’s appointment was at 10 a.m.

Read more.

Politics behind over-the-counter 'morning-after' pill

For a glimpse into the politics that may delay, or possibly stop, the Food and Drug Administration from approving emergency birth control without a prescription, read this story by Cynthia L. Cooper published online by Women’s eNews.

Another reason to get a dog

The hygiene hypothesis holds that children exposed to infections, farming environments, other children – basically germs – have lower rates of allergies and asthma.

Here’s more evidence for the hypothesis: A new study published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology found that a dog at home in the first year of life was linked with a reduction in itchy skin rashes and enhanced production of an immune system hormone with anti-inflammatory properties. The researchers followed 285 children from birth to one year.

They did not find the same effect for cats.

More mad cow revelations on their way

Tom Ellestad, manager of Vern's Moses Lake Meats, is planning to speak up. Ellestad told me today he is working with a non-profit watchdog group critical of the government's cattle testing program.

Ellestad will "tell his side of the story" Wednesday, said Jack Pannell, a spokesman for the Government Accountability Project in Washington, D.C. The group, which also has a Seattle office, is known for protecting government whistleblowers and encouraging citizen activists.

Vern's Moses Lake Meats was one of the few slaughterhouses in the nation to participate in the government's voluntary testing program for mad cow disease. Ellestad talked to the news media shortly after the mad cow story broke, telling the Columbia Basin Herald on Dec. 24 that the cow in question was not a "downer."

Is optimism overrated?

A small Australian study of lung cancer patients found no evidence that a positive attitude made a difference in survival. The study was published online today in the journal Cancer. Read the abstract.

Encouraging cancer patients to be optimistic may only add to their burden, the authors concluded.

But survival isn't everything. The American Cancer Society points out in an Associated Press story that optimism can make a difference in other areas not measured as end points by the researchers.

Medicine cabinet junkies

My Spokesman-Review colleague Stacy Schwandt recently wrote about kids raiding their home medicine cabinets and abusing prescription and over-the-counter drugs -- even cough medicine.

FDA warns of counterfeit birth control

The Food and Drug Administration warned consumers Wednesday that a birth control patch sold over the Internet contains no active ingredients. The web site where women could order the patches apparently has shut down. It was operated by American Style Products of New Delhi, India.

Read the FDA advisory. Be sure to follow the link to photos contrasting the real and counterfeit patches. The fake ones look like bandages in a zip-lock bag.

The Minnesota connection

Minnesota's Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty announced Friday the first state-sponsored web site to help state residents buy prescription drugs from Canada. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is not pleased. Read more.

Mercury: Light tuna better than albacore

The Washington state Department of Health recently analyzed the mercury content of 300 cans of tuna from 83 randomly selected stores across the state.

As in previous similar studies, the albacore tuna had three times more mercury than the light tuna.

Albacore had an average of 215 parts per billion of mercury; light tuna had an 57 parts per billion. Light tuna is usually labeled "chunk light" or "solid light." It can be a mix of several types of tuna.

The study was funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Mercury consumption has been linked to developmental problems in children. The health department advises women who are pregnant, or considering pregnancy, to avoid fish high in mercury.

The National Resources Defense Council provides a chart where you can find your body weight and see how much tuna is too much for your safety. For example, a 132-pound person should eat no more than one six-ounce can of albacore every 10 days, or no more than one six-ounce can of light tuna every four days. The guidelines are based on Environmental Protection Agency levels.