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    <recommendedItem id="20100101_19_343"
                     title="U.S. Marshals Seize Unapproved Ozone Generators"
                     score="0.01"
                     href="http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/EnvironmentalHealth/tb/18228?impressionId=1265787012156"
                     
      &lt;p&gt;WASHINGTON  --  U.S. Marshals have seized 77 unapproved ozone generators, valued at almost $76,000 from a California device manufacturer, the FDA announced.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The devices were advertised as treatments for various conditions, including cancer, AIDS, hepatitis, herpes, and other diseases, but lacked approval or efficacy data to support the claims made on their behalf, an FDA release said.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The raid came after the company, Applied Ozone Systems (AOS) of Auburn, Calif., failed to respond to a voluntary recall request last December, the agency said.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The FDA raised concerns that patients using AOS-IM and AOS-IMD devices will consider it an appropriate treatment for an affliction and delay or stop FDA-approved and proven medical treatments. Patients using the devices may risk infection from contamination of the applicator or catheter, the release said.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The FDA recommended that healthcare professionals and consumers cease use of the devices.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The agency said it obtained an inspection warrant for the company&apos;s manufacturing facilities after the owner refused to admit FDA inspectors. It said the inspection revealed several breaches of the FDA&apos;s good manufacturing practice requirements for medical devices, which had never been approved in the first place.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Ozone is an unstable allotrope of oxygen with three atoms, instead of the normal two. Ozone generators produce ozone from oxygen and have consumer and industrial applications, but ozone itself is harmful to the respiratory system, even at relatively low concentrations.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Instructions with the Applied Ozone Systems devices suggest blowing ozoned air into the rectal and vaginal areas.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Friday&apos;s seizure was part of a joint effort of the FDA and the California Department of Public Health to remove or prevent unapproved or unsafe medical devices from entering the market.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;A statement on the company&apos;s Web site said the two ozone generator models, which sold for $750 and $1,200 respectively, were no longer available by order of the FDA and California authorities.&lt;/p&gt;

    </recommendedItem>
    <recommendedItem id="20100101_19_366"
                     title="Placental Infection Could Spur Asthma (CME/CE)"
                     score="0.01"
                     href="http://www.medpagetoday.com/Pediatrics/Asthma/tb/18252?impressionId=1265787012156"
                     
      Preterm birth complicated by chorioamnionitis may modestly increase a child&apos;s risk of later asthma, researchers found.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;Children born preterm after a pregnancy complicated by the bacterial infection of placenta and amniotic fluid (chorioamnionitis) were significantly more likely to develop asthma by age eight than preemies without such exposure, according to Darios Getahun, MD, MPH, of Kaiser Permanente Department of Research and Evaluation in Pasadena.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;Asthma diagnosis was nearly threefold more common among chorioamnionitis-exposed children who had been born preterm than those carried to term, they wrote in the February &lt;em&gt;Archives of Pediatrics &amp;amp; Adolescent Medicine&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;Premature birth may not give an infant&apos;s lungs a chance to fully develop, leading to early infection and inflammation that elevate risk of chronic lung disease, such as asthma.&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;However, in utero exposures could be an important contributor as well, Getahun explained in an interview.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Chorioamnionitis is thought to be associated with more than half of all preterm births.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Fetal lungs stay in contact with the amniotic fluid which, when infected, may expose the developing lung to microorganisms, toxic substances, and inflammatory mediators, the researchers wrote.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Animal model evidence suggests the condition may lead to scarring and fibrosis in the lung and damage to other fetal organs &quot;during a very critical time at preterm gestation,&quot; Getahun told &lt;em&gt;MedPage Today&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;So, his group retrospectively studied Kaiser&apos;s matched perinatal records on 510,216 singleton children born at the managed care group&apos;s hospitals in Southern California between 1991 and 2007.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Physician-diagnosed asthma incidence by age 8 years, as expected, was significantly higher overall for preemies born at 23 to 36 weeks&apos; gestation than for those carried full-term (60.2 versus 40.0 per 1,000 person-years).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;But chorioamnionitis diagnosed during pregnancy substantially boosted this risk.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Incidence of asthma rose to 100.7 per 1,000 person-years in exposed children born preterm, versus 39.6 per 1,000 among exposed, full-term children (IR 2.9, 95% CI 2.6 to 3.3).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;This association between chorioamnionitis and asthma in preemies persisted (HR 1.68, 95% CI 1.52 to 1.87) after adjustment for important confounding variables, including maternal age, race or ethnicity, smoking during pregnancy, prenatal care, and maternal asthma.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Although the asthma risk appeared to rise with greater prematurity in exposed children, the elevated risk associated with chorioamnionitis exposure in utero was seen in every category of prematurity: &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt; 1.23 times higher risk in children born at 23 to 28 weeks (95% CI 1.02 to 1.49)&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; 1.51 times higher risk in children born at 28 to 33 weeks (95% CI 1.26 to 1.80)&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; 1.20 times higher risk in children born at 34 to 36 weeks (95% CI 1.03 to 1.47)&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Additional adjustment for bronchopulmonary dysplasia  --  &quot;one of the mechanisms through which preterm birth is presumably associated with respiratory problems in early childhood&quot;  --  had little impact on the findings.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Thus, the bacterial infection appeared to be an independent risk factor for asthma in prematurely born children, the researchers concluded.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The risks were particularly high for children born to African-American women who developed chorioamnionitis, suggesting this may be an at-risk group to single out for attention clinically, they suggested.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Getahun cautioned, though, that his group&apos;s study could not prove causality. The researchers also noted that the study was limited by lack of data on parental atopy and smoking.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div style=&quot;float:left;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;border-color:#8dabbc;font-family:arial;font-size:12px;background-color:#DBE9F2;padding:5px;&quot;&gt;&lt;p&gt;The study was supported by Kaiser Permanente Direct Community Benefit funds. The researchers reported no conflicts of interest.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;clear:both;&quot;&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
    </recommendedItem>
    <recommendedItem id="20090101_19_479"
                     title="Fetal Exposure to Traffic Pollution May Affect Asthma Risk"
                     score="-0.005"
                     href="http://www.medpagetoday.com/Pulmonary/Asthma/tb/12901?impressionId=1265787012156"
                     
      CINCINNATI, Feb. 16 -- The likelihood of a child developing asthma may be influenced by prenatal exposure to traffic pollution that induces changes in gene expression, researchers here found.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;Pregnant women who had high exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are derived largely from traffic-related air pollutants, were more likely to show signs of methylation of &lt;em&gt;ACSL3&lt;/em&gt;, Shuk-mei Ho, Ph.D., of the University of Cincinnati, and colleagues reported online in &lt;em&gt;PLoS ONE&lt;/em&gt;. 
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;This gene is possibly linked to asthma development. The epigenetic change was detected in umbilical cord white blood cells, indicating that children exposed prenatally may be at an increased risk for developing asthma.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;Methylation of the gene was significantly associated with high exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (&lt;em&gt;P&lt;/em&gt;&lt;0.001) and parent-reported asthma symptoms in children younger than five (&lt;em&gt;P&lt;/em&gt;=0.03).
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;Although the researchers called the study exploratory and in need of confirmation, they said the gene may be used as a biomarker for the early diagnosis of environmentally related asthma in children.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;Several epidemiological studies have suggested that asthma risk is influenced by prenatal exposure to pollutants and allergens, the researchers said.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;A possible mechanism is through epigenetic changes that alter the expression of genes in response to environmental factors, they said.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;&quot;Environmental insults could &apos;mislead&apos; early organogenesis, resulting in serious ailments in later life,&quot; they said.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;One well-studied change is the methylation of regulatory sequences of DNA, which can disrupt gene regulation, they said.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;Changes like these can occur in target organs, as well as in peripheral cells, like fetal circulating white blood cells, which can be detected in a noninvasive manner.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;Dr. Ho and colleagues looked for potential predictive biomarkers for childhood asthma in umbilical cord white blood cells from children born to nonsmoking Dominican and African-American mothers living in New York City as part of the Columbia Center for Children&apos;s Environmental Health cohort study.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;In this cohort, the prevalence of childhood asthma exceeds 25%, a rate among the highest in the U.S.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;The researchers measured maternal exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons with backpack pollution monitors in the third trimester of pregnancy.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;In a preliminary analysis of umbilical cord white blood cells, the researchers identified six genes whose methylation status was associated with exposure to pollution.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;A literature search revealed that all six genes were expressed in the lung or lymphoid tissues and were involved in inflammatory and other immune responses.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;The strongest association was found for &lt;em&gt;ACSL3&lt;/em&gt;, a gene expressed in the lung and involved in fatty acid metabolism. An experiment in a model cell line showed that exposing the gene to a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon increased methylation and silenced gene expression.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;Out of 56 children chosen for the analysis, 30 had a methylated &lt;em&gt;ACSL3&lt;/em&gt; gene.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;Methylation status distinguished between high and low pollution exposure with a sensitivity of 75% and a specificity of 82%.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;Methylation of the &lt;em&gt;ACSL3&lt;/em&gt; gene was significantly associated with high maternal exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (OR 13.8, 95% CI 3.8 to 50.2) and to parent-reported asthma symptoms in children younger than five (OR 3.9, 95% CI 1.1 to 14.3).
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;Future studies need to determine what role, if any, &lt;em&gt;ACSL3&lt;/em&gt; and its involvement in fatty acid metabolism play in the development of asthma, the researchers said.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;&quot;However, several epidemiological studies show that fatty acid composition in milk, diet, and umbilical cord blood affects the development of allergy and other inflammatory diseases, including asthma,&quot; they said.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;&lt;table cellspacing=&quot;0&quot; hspace=&quot;1&quot; style=&quot;border-style:solid; border-width:1px; border-color:#8dabbc; font-family:arial; font-size:12px; background-color:#DBE9F2; padding:5px 5px 5px 5px;&quot;&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt; The study was supported by grants from the NIH, and by a Department of Defense award, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency award, and the New York Community Trust.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;The authors reported no conflicts of interest.&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;/table&gt;
    </recommendedItem>
    <recommendedItem id="20090101_1_28"
                     title="Asthma Treatment Gulf Widening Between Black And White Children"
                     score="-0.005"
                     href="