Heart expert: One dose of Vioxx can cause attack

Heart expert: One doseof Vioxx can cause attack
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- Intermittent use of Vioxx or even a day's use of the painkiller could be enough to cause a heart attack, a prominent heart and medication expert testified Monday on behalf of a man who is suing the maker of the drug, claiming it caused his heart attack. Vioxx breaks down so slowly in the body that it takes about 85 hours to clear out of the blood, testified Dr. Benedict Lucchesi, a professor at the University of Michigan who helped develop the first pacemaker. Based on the science, there's every reason to believe that a single dose, multiple doses, whatever, can lead to an adverse event," such as a heart attack or stroke, Lucchesi said. That could be a key point in 60-year-old Idaho postal worker Frederick "Mike" Humeston's case against Vioxx maker Merck & amp; Co. Vioxx, launched in May 1999, was pulled from the market in September 2004 by Whitehouse Station-based Merck after its own research showed the blockbuster arthritis drug doubled the risk of heart attack and stroke after 18 months' use. Humeston had a heart attack in 2001 after taking Vioxx for only two months and skipping some doses. The company contends that Humeston's condition and sedentary lifestyle led to his heart attack, and that Vioxx was not the cause. Lucchesi also told jurors that repeated evidence and warning signs linked heart risks to the painkiller Vioxx before and shortly after its launch.
Hearing to determineHinckley's visits to parents
WASHINGTON -- Presidential assailant John Hinckley wants a new girlfriend and his father wants him to get married. Hinckley's desires, along with his thwarted efforts to woo women, unfolded Monday during a federal court hearing into his bid for visits to his parents' Virginia home, a three-hour drive from the Washington hospital where he has spent more than two decades since shooting President Reagan and four other people. Paul Montalbano, a hospital psychologist, testified that Hinckley no longer suffers from the major depression and psychiatric disorder that led to his obsession with actress Jodie Foster and an attempted assassination of the president. Hinckley, who was found not guilty by reason of insanity in 1982, said at the time that he shot Reagan to impress Foster.
Laser-technology pioneerdies at 85 in New York
NEW YORK -- Gordon Gould, a pioneer in laser technology who coined the word laser and won a decades-long struggle to secure patent rights for the most commonly used type, has died. He was 85. He died Friday in Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan of an infection, his wife, Marilyn Appel, said Monday. Gould, a resident of Sag Harbor, on Long Island, once said that his first ideas for the laser came suddenly to him in 1957. He sketched his thoughts in a notebook, writing, "Some rough calculations on the feasibility of a LASER: Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation," according to "Laser," a book about Gould by Nick Taylor. Gould invented two of the most important kinds of lasers, the gas discharge laser and the optically pumped laser, which have applications as varied as supermarket checkout counters and eye operations. He began work on the laser in 1957 based on his graduate studies at Columbia University and first applied for the patent in 1959. The U.S. Patent Office denied his application, sparking a legal battle that would span three decades, with scientific prestige and tens of millions of dollars at stake. Gould won his first minor patent in 1977.
New breakthroughin stem-cell research
WASHINGTON -- Injections of human stem cells seem to directly repair some of the damage caused by spinal cord injury, according to research that helped partially paralyzed mice walk again. The experiment, reported Monday, isn't the first to show that stem cells offer tantalizing hope for spinal cord injury -- other scientists have helped mice recover, too. But the new work went an extra step, suggesting the connections that the stem cells form to help bridge the damaged spinal cord are key to recovery. Surprisingly, they didn't just form new nerve cells. They also formed cells that create the biological insulation that nerve fibers need to communicate. A number of neurological diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, involve loss of that insulation, called myelin. "The actual cells that we transplanted, the human cells, are the ones that are making myelin," explained lead researcher Aileen Anderson of the University of California, Irvine. "We're extremely excited about these cells." The research is reported in Monday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Associated Press