News summary
News in brief
Encourage immunisation for Haj now A
new campaign highlights the need for pilgrims going to Mecca, Saudi Arabia,
to the Haj in February 2002 to be immunised against meningitis...[more]
Harrow pharmacists launch heart disease screening
programme Community pharmacists in Harrow, north London, have
started an intervention programme aimed at screening patients with coronary
heart disease using national service framework guidelines. Similar schemes
for unwanted medicines and excessive prescribing have also started...[more]
Children do not eat sufficient fruit and vegetables
Children's diets are seriously short in fruit and vegetables,
a survey has found...[more]
NICE guidance on MS The National Institute
for Clinical Excellence (NICE) published the final consultation document
of its appraisal on beta-interferon and glatiramer acetate for multiple
sclerosis (MS) on 2 November 2001...[more]
Questions raised over use of long-term of tamoxifen
therapy for prevention esearchers have raised questions over
the general use of tamoxifen as preventive therapy in healthy women at
risk of breast cancer, although benefits were found for women at particularly
high risk...[more]
Vitamin D reduces risk of diabetes Vitamin
D supplementation in children reduces the risk of developing type 1 diabetes,
reseachers say...[more]
Second wave MM pilots details Details
of how to apply to be part of the second wave of medicines management
pilots have been released by the National Prescribing Centre...[more]
Private finance scheme extended Private
finance is to be extended into National Health Service primary care in
a new way...[more]
New erectile dysfunction drug useful in diabetes
Vardenafil, a treatment for erectile dysfunction, will be especially
useful in the treatment of men with diabetes, according to new data...[more]
Pharmacy features again in NHS winter advice
campaign Community pharmacy is again at the centre of the National
Health Service's winter advice advertising campaign...[more]
Ramipril use in HOPE trial reduced new diabetes
diagnoses Patients in the Heart Outcomes Prevention Evaluation
(HOPE) trial who ended up taking the angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor
ramipril had a lower rate of being newly diagnosed with diabetes, according
to a sub-analysis of the study...[more]
Trainee gets judicial review over failure of
registration examination A pharmacy trainee who has failed
the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's registration examination three times
has been granted a judicial review of the Society's decision not to allow
her a fourth attempt...[more]
Information, not advertising, is what consumers
need Consumers need access to impartial, accurate information
about medicines and not to be faced with partisan product advertising...[more]
Alpharma to colour-code packaging Alpharma
is to colour-code all its generic medicines following a change in branding
from Cox Pharmaceuticals...[more]
Lloyds boss goes back to shop floor Mike
Ward, chief executive of Lloyds-pharmacy, recently spent a day working
at the group's pharmacy at Cobham, Surrey, as part of a "back to the floor"
initiative involving its senior management...[more]
Pharmology.com set to go live in January 2002
Pharmology.com, Alliance-UniChem's international pharmacy business
and consumer website, is to be fully launched in Britain in January 2002...[more]
Counter attack leads to sales recovery in chemist
sundries Unichem's "Counter attack" programme has reversed
the shift of sales of toiletries and related products from community pharmacies
to the grocery sector...[more]
Britain to fight Europe over animal medicines
Britain is to fight a European Commission proposal to make
all veterinary medicines for food-producing animals available only on
prescription...[more]
UniChem writes down its standards Working
standards agreements are to be introduced by UniChem Ltd so that its customers
have a clear understanding of what they can expect the company to do...[more]
NHS Reform and Decentralisation Bill expected
in Parliament soon A bill to make major changes to the structure
of the National Health Service, the NHS Reform and Decentralisation Bill,
is expected to be published within the next few days...[more]
NEWS IN BRIEF
Simplifying antiretroviral therapy
Initiating antiretroviral therapy with four drugs and then simplifying
the regimen to three drugs is effective for HIV treatment-naive patients,
researchers say. Maintenance therapy with Trizivir (zidovudine, lamivudine,
abacavir), after a quadruple-drug initiation phase, was found to be effective
at maintaining viral loads at a low level (below 50 copies/ml) in addition
to reducing the pill burden, researchers conclude. The results were presented
at a European conference on HIV infection held in Athens on 29 October.
Positive results for fusion inhibitors
Positive results for a new class of HIV treatment were presented at an
HIV conference in Athens on 30 October. The new class, fusion inhibitors,
prevent HIV from fusing with the host cell thus preventing the virus from
entering and replicating there. In a 48-week trial in 41 patients with
advanced disease, 56 per cent showed a sustained response to the fusion
inhibitor T-20 and viral loads of less than 400 copies/ml were achieved
in 39 per cent of patients.
More breast than lung cancer Breast
cancer is now the most common form of cancer in the United Kingdom, overtaking
lung cancer for the first time, according to the Imperial Cancer Research
Fund and the Cancer Research Campaign. The decline in lung cancer rates
reflects a fall in the number of smokers but the reasons for the rise
in breast cancer rates over the past 30 years are unclear. Sir Paul Nurse,
director general of the ICRF, says: "A number of factors may be contributing
to these trends, for example, more women are having children later in
life and there is an increase in obesity which is a risk factor in post-menopausal
women."
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