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Biotech / Medical : XOMA. Bull or Bear? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: aknahow who wrote (8767)	2/18/1999 12:38:00 AM
From: Bluegreen	Respond to of 17367

George, the struggle continues. Finally the public is demanding choice. Sad to say it is almost like getting Magna Charte signed. THEY WANT CHOICE, GEORGE! Even though it only protects around a third of cases, THEY STILL WANT CHOICE. Parents and children have demanded mass vaccinations against meningitis. About 100 protesters marched through Pontypridd in Wales, the town hit by an outbreak over the last fortnight. They plan to present Bro Taf Health Authority with a petition on Thursday. The authority has vaccinated almost 3,000 children and teachers in the district following the outbreak. The Pontypridd outbreak has affected 13 people and led to three deaths. 'We want a choice' Lissa Thomas, an organiser of the demo, wants her eight-year-old child Rhys to get a chance of being immunised. She said: "We want the health authority to give us the choice of whether or not we have our children vaccinated. And we are here today to tell them how we feel." Bonita Hughes, attacked the health authority's policy of refusing mass vaccinations. She has two children but only one of them, her son, has been vaccinated. She said: "I have got two children who are living together, but they say my daughter is not at risk. I think that is ridiculous." Brian John is mayor of Pontypridd. He said: "The turnout today has been excellent. It just shows the support for mass vaccinations in the town. "The policy of the health authority is counter-productive. I just cannot understand why they are refusing to vaccinate our children." No plans to extend programme The authority's policy is to vaccinate children at schools where there have been two or more cases of the same strain of meningitis. It says it has no plans to extend the immunisation programme. A spokeswoman said: "There are a variety of reasons why we don't want to do that. "The vaccine only protects again the C-strain, which is only a third of all cases, it is not 100% foolproof and there would be a lot of natural immunity within the community." She added that if people received innoculation now, they would not be able to benefit from any improved vaccine in a couple of years' time.

To: aknahow who wrote (8767)	2/18/1999 12:43:00 AM
From: Bluegreen	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 17367

US cases of resistant bacteria cause for concern NEW YORK, Feb 17 (Reuters Health) -- Researchers report the first three US cases of infections caused by Staphylococcus aureus bacteria resistant to vancomycin, an antibiotic often reserved to fight these infections when no other agent is effective. The emergence of vancomycin-resistant S. aureus ''threatens to return us to the era before the development of antibiotics,'' warn researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia. Two case reports on the issue are published in the February 18th edition of The New England Journal of Medicine. S. aureus, a common bacteria, is easily transmitted via physical contact with infected persons. It is a common cause of skin infections, such as surgical-wound infections, and also of bloodstream infections. Penicillin antibiotics have proven effective against S. aureus infection in the past. However, the general overuse of antibiotics has allowed S. aureus to develop mutations rendering it resistant to many of these drugs. Thus vancomycin, from a different family of antibiotics and with a different way of fighting bacteria, became important as a 'last-resort' treatment against penicillin-resistant strains of S. aureus. Experts were alarmed when, in 1996, a patient in Japan developed the first known case of vancomycin-resistant S. aureus infection. Now, the CDC researchers report that two US patients -- a 59-year-old Michigan man, and a 66-year-old New Jersey resident, both suffering from diabetes -- have tested positive for vancomycin-resistant S. aureus. At the same time, a second team of researchers, led by Dr. Krzysztof Sieradzki of Rockefeller University in New York City, report a third case of vancomycin-resistant S. aureus in a 79-year-old patient with kidney disease. S. aureus isolates obtained from this patient were found to be ''close relatives'' of an antibiotic-resistant S. aureus strain ''recently shown to be widely distributed in hospitals in metropolitan New York,'' the authors add. All three infections were eventually brought under control through the use of combinations of various other antibiotics. The CDC researchers point out that all three US patients had histories of long-term vancomycin therapy linked with dialysis treatment. They believe, therefore, that the strains ''emerged through the selection of naturally occurring resistant mutants during (this) prolonged exposure to vancomycin.'' Based on their findings, they recommend that ''the use of vancomycin must be (used only when necessary), laboratory methods for the detection of resistant pathogens must be enhanced, and infection-control precautions must be strictly followed for infected... patients.'' In his commentary, Dr. Francis A. Waldvogel of University Hospital in Geneva, Switzerland, describes the findings as ''a chronicle of a death foretold.'' He notes that with ''each new antibiotic that is introduced, several escape mechanisms are soon devised'' by bacteria. Waldvogel believes, therefore, that ''it was naive to believe for 40 years that vancomycin could remain an exception to this law.'' Unfortunately, the efficacy of the newest line of antibiotics under development has yet to be fully demonstrated in clinical trials. In the meantime, Waldvogel contends that we will ''need the strategic powers of a Julius Caesar to conduct a major war against the misuse of antibiotics.''