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| Study says Boston scleroderma genetic BOSTON (UPI) -- Genetics, and not the environment, is the key reason some longtime residents of South Boston suffer from incurable scleroderma, officials said.
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health studied a higher-than-expected number of cases of the rare autoimmune disease in the City Point district of South Boston.
City Point residents had blamed a nearby power plant and hazardous waste sites for the rare life-threatening disease that hardens muscles and internal organs.
The $1.75 million study found people with a family history of autoimmune-rheumatic diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, Raynaud's disease, lupus and thyroid disease, were more likely to develop scleroderma, said Robert Simms, head of rheumatology at Boston Medical Center.
Some of the 41 City Point residents afflicted with the disease still believe their polluted environment is to blame, said Ann Dilorati Macaulay, who grew up in the neighborhood and has scleroderma.
"I do think there is a genetic component, but when we are exposed to (pollution), it triggers the disease," Macaulay told The Boston Globe in a story published Monday.
Copyright 2010 by United Press International |
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| Patients often unaware of radiation risks NEW YORK (UPI) -- Americans are receiving more medical radiation than ever before, experts say, but while it saves countless lives, serious, even fatal mistakes can happen.
With radiation therapy being delivered by technologically complex machines, risks from software flaws, faulty programming, inadequate safety procedures or poor training can lead to crippling mistakes, The New York Times reported Sunday.
The average lifetime radiation dose is seven times what it was in 1980, but patients often are unaware of risks, the Times said in an analysis based on a review of public and private records and interviews with physicians, researchers, government regulators and others.
Hospitals often place too much trust in the new computer systems and software, said Dr. Howard I. Amols, chief of clinical physics at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York
Since there is no single agency overseeing medical radiation, regulators and researchers can only guess how often radiotherapy accidents occur. Accidents are under-reported, records show, and some states do not require they be reported at all.
In June, the Times found, a Philadelphia hospital gave the wrong radiation dose to more than 90 patients with prostate cancer -- then did not report it.
"My suspicion is that maybe half of the accidents we don't know about," said Dr. Fred A. Mettler Jr., who has investigated radiation accidents around the world.
Copyright 2010 by United Press International |
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| Children of two gay parents do as well LOS ANGELES (UPI) -- Studies indicate children raised by two same-gender parents do as well on average as children raised by two different-gender parents, U.S. researchers say.
Sociologist Timothy Biblarz of the University of Southern California and Judith Stacey of New York University analyzed relevant studies about parenting, including available research on single-mother and single-father households, gay male parents and lesbian parents.
"That a child needs a male parent and a female parent is so taken for granted that people are uncritical," Stacey said in a statement.
"Significant policy decisions have been swayed by the misconception across party lines that children need both a mother and a father. Yet, there is almost no social science research to support this claim. One problem is that proponents of this view routinely ignore research on same-gender parents."
The social science research that is routinely cited does not actually speak to the questions of whether or not children need both a mother and a father at home, but compares heterosexual two-parent families with single parents."
There are far more similarities than differences among children of lesbian and heterosexual parents, but lesbian biological mothers typically assumed greater caregiving responsibility than their partners. Studies of gay male families are still limited.
The article is scheduled to be published in the February issue of Journal of Marriage and Family.
Copyright 2010 by United Press International |
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| U.S. birth weights dropping BOSTON (UPI) -- U.S. newborns have gotten smaller during the past 15 years, reversing a decades-long upward trend in birth weights, Harvard researchers say.
Researchers at the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute's department of population medicine, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, analyzed data on birth weight, maternal and neonatal characteristics, obstetric care and other trends from the National Center for Health Statistics Natality Data Sets. The researchers looked at data from 36,827,828 U.S. babies born at full-term between 1990 and 2005.
"Previous studies [covering periods into the early 1990s] have shown that birth weights have increased steadily during the past half-century," Emily Oken of Harvard Medical School said in a statement. "We expected to see a continuation of those increases."
Instead, Oken and her colleagues found birth weights had decreased by an average of 1.83 ounces between 1990 and 2005.
The study, published in February's Obstetrics & Gynecology, also found white, well-educated, married women who didn't smoke, received early prenatal care and delivered vaginally with no complications had babies who weighed an average of 2.78 ounces less at birth during the study period.
The causes of this decline remain unclear and babies born small not only face short-term complications but increased risk as adults.
Future research may identify other factors not included in the current data that might contribute to lower birth weight, such as trends in mothers' diets, physical activity, stress and exposure to environmental toxins.
Copyright 2010 by United Press International |
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