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Plan
B now unrestricted
OTTAWA —
The Plan B emergency contraceptive pill is now available
in pharmacies without having to ask a pharmacist. The
National Association of Pharmacy Regulatory Authorities
accepted a recommendation last month to make the morning
after pill more easily accessible. The Canadian Pharmacists
Association decried the loss of required contact with
a health professional. The rule change didn't apply
to Quebec.
Isotope
crisis unsolved: MDs
OTTAWA —
Only months after a brief shut-down of Ontario's Chalk
River nuclear reactor sparked international panic, plans
for two replacement reactors have been scrapped, Atomic
Energy of Canada Ltd said last month. The Canadian Society
of Nuclear Medicine is worried about the lack of planning
for the production of diagnostic imaging radioisotopes
after the Chalk River facility, which accounts for over
50% of the world's supply, closes in 2011.
Trick
the kids with Obecalp
BALTIMORE —
An entrepreneurial mother has put the power of the placebo
effect in parents' hands. Some medical ethicists' qualms
didn't stop Jennifer Buettner from going ahead with
the June 1 opening of sales on her Efficacy Brands website,
which sells inexpensive bottles of cherry-flavoured
chewable dextrose pills called Obecalp (read it backwards).
Drug
relieves opioid constipation
TORONTO —
It's one of medicine's many paradoxes: treating pain
with opioids causes severe constipation, which in turn
causes more pain. For cases when laxatives don't work,
methylnaltrexone bromide is now available in Canada.
The drug reverses the effects of opioids in the gastrointestinal
tract only.
Health
Canada cribs student's research
OTTAWA —
Seventeen-year-old high school student Maria Merziotis's
research on the synthesis of sialyllactose, the substance
the flu virus bonds to around human cells, not only
won her first prize at a biotech science fair last month
— it's also attracted Health Canada's attention.
Officials are now testing whether her research could
lead to improved flu diagnosis and treatment.
Frankincense
is psychoactive
JERUSALEM —
No word yet on myrrh and gold, but new research shows
frankincense has psychoactive properties, report Israeli
and American researchers in the Federation of American
Societies for Experimental Biology Journal. The
discovery could lead to a new class of anxiety and depression
drugs. "Perhaps Marx wasn't too wrong when he called
religion the opium of the people," said the journal's
editor in a release.
Fresh
eyes catch more polyps
SAN DIEGO —
Colonoscopists find around 20% more polyps in the first
procedure of the day and their effectiveness drops as
the day wears on, reported a UCLA researcher at the
Digestive Disease Week conference last month. "There
is definitely a fatigue factor," New York colorectal
cancer specialist Sidney J Winawer told MedPage Today.
Elderly
driving tests would help MDs
TORONTO —
Earlier mandatory driving tests for the elderly would
improve public safety and reduce the burden on doctors
to take away patients' keys, the Insurance Bureau of
Canada's CEO Mark Yakabuski said last month. Most provinces
currently ask physicians to assess elderly drivers'
physical and cognitive abilities, which could violate
doctor-patient confidentiality, Mr Yakabuski said.
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