Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments,
compiled by editors of HealthDay:
Many U.S. Men Have Had 15 or More Sex Partners
A new U.S. government survey found that 29 percent of American men and nine percent of women reported they've had sex with at least 15 partners in their lifetime.
The average number of sexual partners was 6.8 for men and 3.7 for women, said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey released Friday. It included 6,237 people, ages 20 to 59, who were asked about their sexual habits and drug use. The data was collected from 1999 to 2002, Bloomberg news reported.
Among the other survey findings:
- Only four percent of adults ages 20 and older have never had sex.
- About one in seven respondents (16 percent) said they first had sex before age 15.
- More than one in five adults ages 20 to 49 have tried cocaine or other street drugs at some point in their life, and five percent said they had used such drugs within the previous year.
The findings about Americans' sexual habits suggest that the Bush administration's emphasis on promoting abstinence among unmarried people as a way of preventing sexually transmitted diseases is inadequate, said one expert.
"To rely on just one strategy for something is just bad; the more options you have, the more likely people are to use one of them," Bean Robinson, a psychologist and sexual behavior researcher at the University of Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis, told Bloomberg.
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Mexicans in U.S. Rural Areas Lack Good Medical Care
Working-age Mexicans in rural areas of the United States are about one-third less likely than rural whites to have a usual source of medical care, while Mexicans in urban areas are one-quarter less likely than whites to have a usual source of medical care, according to a study led by researchers from the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
The study authors noted that not having a usual source of medical care -- such as a regular doctor or community health clinics -- limits a person's access to primary care, which is the front line for preventing and managing health problems.
The analysis of 2002-2003 data also found that Mexicans living in U.S. cities were no more likely than those in rural areas to have visited a doctor at least once within the previous year -- even though medical care is more readily available in cities.
Urban-dwelling Mexicans were 21 percent less likely than rural whites and 26 percent less likely than urban whites to have seen a doctor within the previous year.
Few studies have examined whether living in rural areas worsens the health care access disparity between Hispanics and whites, even though U.S. census data shows that the Hispanic population in small towns and rural areas has more than doubled in recent decades, the study authors said.
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WHO Wants $2 Billion to Fight Drug-Resistant TB
The World Health Organization (WHO) is asking for $2.15 billion to battle drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis in order to prevent a possible future epidemic.
At a meeting in Geneva with journalists, WHO tuberculosis expert Paul Nunn said that between 400,000 and 450,000 people worldwide have multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) and 25,000 to 30,000 have the more severe extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB), Agence France-Presse reported.
The WHO wants the funding for a program that seeks to improve diagnosis and treatment of "basic" TB before drug resistance occurs and to develop treatments for drug-resistant TB strains. This approach could prevent 134,000 MDR-TB- and XDR-TB-related deaths over the next two years.
If action isn't taken, Nunn warned that there could eventually be millions of drug-resistant TB cases worldwide each year, which would represent a "return to the pre-antibiotic era," AFP reported.
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Many Parents Can't Leave Work to Care for Sick Child
Greater access to federal and employer-provided job leave can help working American parents better care for chronically ill children, says a RAND Corporation study in the journal Pediatrics.
Researchers surveyed 574 full-time parents of chronically ill children in order to examine the availability of paid and unpaid work leaves, how often parents missed work to care for ill children, and the length of time the parents were away from work. The survey was conducted between November 2003 and January 2004.
Less than half the parents qualified for benefits under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, which provides eligible workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave per year to care for ill family members without the risk of being fired.
The study also found:
- Only 30 percent of parents reported having employer-provided leave that could be used to care for ill family members, and only 15 percent said they had access to paid leave.
- Most of the parents reported missing some work in the past year to care for their ill children. Of those, 40 percent said they returned to work before their child's health improved. Of that group, 60 percent said they returned to work because they needed the pay.
- Nearly half the parents said that at least once in the previous year they could not take time off work even though their children needed them. Of those, 70 percent said they would have taken time off work if they would have received at least some pay during the time off.
- Parents were more likely to miss work to care for their children if they were aware of their eligibility for Family and Medical Leave benefits; had access to employer-provided leave; or had access to paid leave.
Among the study authors' recommendations:
- Evaluate the potential impact of expanding eligibility for the Family and Medical Leave Act and educate more employees about these benefits.
- Examine the likely effects on families and businesses when access to employer-provided or government-provided leave benefits is increased.
RAND is a nonprofit research organization.
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FDA Approves 'Computerized Medication Box'
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a programmable medication box that stores and dispenses prescription drugs for patients in their homes.
The Electronic Medication Management Assistant (EMMA), which is designed to be used under the supervision of a licensed health care provider, can reduce drug dosing and identification errors and help health care professionals monitor whether patients are adhering to medication regimens, said manufacturer INRange Systems of Altoona, Pa.
The company said EMMA may prove especially useful for older patients and for others, such as HIV/AIDS patients, with complex medication regimens.
EMMA includes a medication storage/delivery unit that's about the size of a bread box. Two-way communication software enables health care professionals to remotely schedule or adjust medication use. The unit emits an audible alert when it's time for a patient to take medications.
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EPA Misled New York City Residents on WTC Dust Contamination
In the years after the collapse of the World Trade Center, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency misled thousands of New York City residents about the amount of dust contamination in their apartments and condominiums, says a Government Accountability Office (GAO) preliminary report released Wednesday at a Senate subcommittee hearing.
GAO investigators found that the EPA did not accurately report the results of a residential cleanup program conducted in more than 4,000 Lower Manhattan residences in 2002 and 2003, The New York Times reported.
The EPA said that unsafe levels of asbestos were detected in only a "very small" number of air samples taken in the residences. But the agency didn't reveal that 80 percent of those air samples were collected after the residences were cleaned, the GAO report said.
As a result of the misleading information, many residents did not have a true understanding of their risk, the GAO said. Because of that, only 295 apartment building owners and residents signed up for a new residential cleanup program, which halted enrollment in March. More than 20,000 apartments had been eligible to take part in the program, The Times reported.
