Health care updates, Sept 3

Botox maker to pay $600M to resolve federal investigation
Botox maker Allergan will pay $600 million to resolve an ongoing federal investigation on “misbranding” misdemeanour. Allergan supposedly wrongly marketed Botox off-label. Botox is approved for smoothing facial wrinkles, treat neck elbows, wrists and fingers spasms, eye muscle disorders and excessive underarm sweating. Off-label use includes headache, pain, spasticity and cerebral palsy.

Superfast TB test slashes waiting time
Tuberculosis test results ready in 90 minutes? That is indeed a big improvement over the current standard smear test that takes 6 weeks to complete. What’s more, the Xpert MTB/RIF test can identify 98% of active TB cases and detect those which are resistant to the TB drug rifampicin. The smear test has a sensitivity of only 45%. The test would be a big boost to the ongoing anti-TB campaign in developing countries where prevalence of the disease is high. However, barriers to the test’s widespread use still need to be overcome, e.g. its feasibility to use in ill-equipped labs and its price.

483 Inspectional Observations on the Egg Recall
The US FDA is continuing investigations into the shell eggs recall due Salmonella contamination involving  2 Iowa-based farms Wright County and Hillandale Farm. On the FDA site could be found some results from the inspections (“483 inspectional observations”) for listing some problems observed, including manure tracking and leakage, several points of ingress for rodents and other vermin into the hen houses, and other structural and sanitation problems, indicating non-compliance to required biosecurity measures.

Private-Party Gun Sales, Regulation, and Public Safety 
In the August review of the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers wrote a perspective article on the unregulated sale of firearms at “private parties”.

“…private parties can buy and sell many guns a year while claiming not to be engaged in the business. Perhaps 40% of all gun sales nationwide — roughly 6.6 million transactions in 2008 — are made by private parties. Moreover, private parties can sell handguns to anyone 18 years of age or older; licensed retailers cannot sell handguns to anyone under 21 years of age.”

Topless nurse advert gets pulses racing in Denmark
The Danish are known for their rather sexy shows and ads. But this one coming from no other than the Danish Nurses’ Organisation was deemed a bit too “racy.” The recruitment drive ad showed a topless nurse rubbing her breasts on the head of a flatliner male patient to revive him. The association, in trying to augment the shortage of nursing staff in the country, tries to change the image of the nursing profession from being such a drudge to being sexy. However, negative response to the ad forced the nursing group to pull out the ad.