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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=1265817012895"
                     
      &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_299"
                     title="Teen Pregnancies, Births, and Abortions Increase"
                     score="0.005"
                     href="http://www.medpagetoday.com/OBGYN/Pregnancy/tb/18162?impressionId=1265817012895"
                     
      &lt;p&gt;After a decade of decline, the rate of teenage pregnancies increased by 3% in 2006 as 750,000 women younger than 20 became pregnant, according to a report released by the Guttmacher Institute.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;And as pregnancies increased, so did births  --  41.9 births per 1,000 U.S. teenage girls, which was 4% higher than in 2005  --  and abortions, which increased by 1% from 2005 to 2006.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In a prepared statement, Planned Parenthood blamed abstinence-only sex education programs for the uptick.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&quot;It is a tragedy that after a decade of progress in reducing the rate of teenage pregnancy we are witnessing a substantial increase in the number of teens who are getting pregnant,&quot; Planned Parenthood said.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In a statement released last May in conjunction with the &quot;National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy&quot; the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), agreed that comprehensive sex education was likely to be more effective than abstinence-only programs.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&quot;Abstinence works for some teens, but the idea that most teens will wait to have sex indefinitely is rigid and impractical,&quot; said Richard S. Guido, MD, chair of the ACOG&apos;s Committee on Adolescent Health Care.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;But the Guttmacher report suggested that the reasons for increase may be more complex, including &quot;shifts in the racial and ethnic composition of the population, increases in poverty, the growth of abstinence-only sex education programs at the expense of comprehensive programs, and changes in public perception and attitudes toward both teenage and unintended pregnancy.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Among black teenagers the pregnancy rate was 126.3 per 1,000 versus 44 per 1,000 non-Hispanic white teenagers.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;A breakdown by state revealed that New Mexico had the highest teenage pregnancy rate, followed by Nevada, Arizona, Texas, and Mississippi.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Conversely, the lowest teenage pregnancy rate was in New Hampshire  --  33 pregnancies per 1,000  --  followed by Vermont, Maine, Minnesota, and North Dakota.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Texas had the highest rate of births to teenage mothers  --  62 per 1,000  --  and New York had the highest rate of abortions among teenagers, 41 per 1,000.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The report was based on data from the National Center for Health Statistics of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (number of births), the Guttmacher Institute (total number of abortions), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (age and race/ethnicity distribution of women obtaining abortions), and the Population Estimates Program of the U.S. Bureau of the Census in collaboration with NCHS (population estimates).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Among other findings in the report: &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;The pregnancy rate was 71.5 pregnancies per 1,000 girls ages 15-19 and pregnancies occurred among 7% of females in this age group.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Although teenage abortions increased by 1% from 2005 to 2006, the overall teenage abortion rate declined by about a third over the two decades from 1986 to 2006.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;The increase in teen pregnancies and births to teenage mothers was observed across all racial and ethnic groups.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The authors said that additional research was needed to determine if the disparities in rates by both race and region carry over to adult women.&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 report was prepared by Kathryn Kost, Stanley Henshaw, and Liz Carlin of the Guttmacher Institute.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Lawrence Finer, Rebecca Wind, Susheela Singh, and Laura Lindberg provided comments on early drafts.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The report was funded by grants from the Brush Foundation, The California Wellness Foundation (TCWF) and the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The Guttmacher Institute also gratefully acknowledges the general support it receives from individuals and foundations, including major grants from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the Ford Foundation, which undergirds all of the Institute&apos;s work.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;clear:both;&quot;&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
    </recommendedItem>
    <recommendedItem id="20090101_19_2455"
                     title="Medicines Top Cause of Poisoning in Kids"
                     score="-0.005"
                     href="http://www.medpagetoday.com/EmergencyMedicine/EmergencyMedicine/tb/15389?impressionId=1265817012895"
                     
      &lt;p&gt;Children are twice as likely to be poisoned by the medicine cabinet than by cleaning products or other household substances, researchers found.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Emergency department visits for unintentional poisoning involved prescription or over-the-counter medication in 68.9% of pediatric case&lt;strong&gt;s&lt;/strong&gt;, according to Daniel S. Budnitz, MD, of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, and colleagues.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Children taking medications without supervision caused 10 times as many poisonings as overdose errors by a parent or other caregiver in the national study of emergency department surveillance, the authors reported online ahead of print in September&apos;s &lt;em&gt;American Journal of Preventive Medicine&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The findings held few surprises but emphasize the need for prevention, particularly with toddlers, commented Carl Baum, MD, of the Center for Children&apos;s Environmental Toxicology at Yale-New Haven Children&apos;s Hospital, who was not involved in the study.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Children 5 and under accounted for 81.3% of pediatric accidental poisonings in the study, which Baum chalked up to their inventiveness in bypassing adult measures to prevent access. &quot;You have to be careful because toddlers are often one step ahead of adults,&quot; he asserted.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Budnitz&apos; group analyzed data from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission&apos;s National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS), which receives reports from a random sample of adult and pediatric hospitals across the country.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The database included 3,034 emergency department visits or hospital admissions of patients under 19 during 2004-2005 for a condition the treating physician attributed to a medication overdose (more than the intended dose or inadvertent exposure), or to poisoning from a nonpharmaceutical consumer product.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Cases included ingestion and skin or eye exposures but excluded illicit substances, alcohol, tobacco, bee stings, and lead.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Based on these cases, the researchers estimated that childhood poisonings result in 71,224 emergency department visits nationwide every year.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The population rate of emergency care for medication overdoses was significantly higher than those for nonpharmaceutical products at 9.2 visits per 10,000 individuals per year (95% CI 7.3 to 11.0) compared with 4.2 (95% CI 3.3 to 5.0).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Commonly available over-the-counter medications accounted for 33.9% of cases overall. The most commonly implicated drugs were: &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;Acetaminophen (9.3%).&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Cough and cold medications (7.3%).&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Antidepressants (6.1%).&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs, 5.3%).&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Inclusion of cough and cold medicines on this list highlights the risks emphasized recently by both the FDA and trade groups representing the manufacturers. (See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.medpagetoday.com/Pediatrics/GeneralPediatrics/11213&quot; mce_href=&quot;http://www.medpagetoday.com/Pediatrics/GeneralPediatrics/11213&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;Pediatric OTC Cough and Cold Remedies Should be Shunned in Toddlers&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.medpagetoday.com/Pediatrics/GeneralPediatrics/8008&quot; mce_href=&quot;http://www.medpagetoday.com/Pediatrics/GeneralPediatrics/8008&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;FDA Repeats Warning on Cough and Cold Medicines and Hopes That Parents Get the Message&lt;/a&gt; )&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Cough and cold medicines &quot;do a very poor job of treating symptoms that are usually self-limiting&quot; and are potentially dangerous for children, Baum noted.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Medication overdose rates peaked at age 2 years (54.7 per 10,000 individuals per year) and fell with age until adolescence, when rates again rose (1.8 per 10,000 per year at ages 12 to 14 versus 3.3 at ages 15 to 18).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;The fact that, annually, one of every 180 children age 2 years is treated in an emergency department for a medication overdose, despite current prevention efforts, underscores the size of this public health issue,&quot; Budnitz&apos;s group concluded.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;If anything, the results probably underestimate the scope of childhood poisonings, since poison control centers receive many more calls about pediatric poisonings, they noted. However, only a quarter of those result in direct treatment by a healthcare professional, they noted.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Since unsupervised ingestion of medications by children 5 and under accounted for more than 75% of childhood poisonings, prevention efforts should concentrate on this problem, the investigators recommended.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Child-resistant bottles, blister packs, and other packaging have been effective against childhood medication overdoses, Baum noted, though these can be defeated by failure to use them properly, such as cross-threading a lid.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Further efforts should focus on improving packaging for the drugs most commonly implicated in poisonings, such as bottles that release only a single dose at a time or restrict the amount that can be ingested by an unsupervised child, the researchers said.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Thee study limitations they noted included a database that captures medication overdoses resulting in emergency department visits but misses cases in which the patient does not receive medical attention (including those of children who die before receiving it), or cases evaluated only in an outpatient setting, as well as possible misclassification of intentional overdose if adolescents or children were not forthcoming about their intentions.&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 funded by the CDC and supported in part by an interagency agreement between the Department of Energy and the CDC.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Budnitz reported no conflicts of interest. Co-authors disclosed owning stock in Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Monsanto, General Electric, Walgreen&apos;s, and Baxter.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Baum reported no conflicts of interest.&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;/table&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    </recommendedItem>
    <recommendedItem id="20090101_1_51"
                     title="Pediatricians Back Easy Access to Sterile Syringes for IV-Drug Abusers"
                     score="-0.005"
                     href="