Health Report: Sep. 12, 1994

THE GOOD NEWS

— The cause of Alzheimer’s disease is still unknown, but new research points to excess zinc as a possible explanation for physical changes found in victims’ brains.

— A new blood test can tell whether patients with chest pain but a normal electrocardiogram are in fact having a heart attack; such people usually go into intensive care as a precaution, but over 70% don’t belong there.

— About 10% of those who get melanoma, the skin cancer that kills some 7,000 Americans each year, have an inherited weakness for the disease. Now the guilty gene has been found; it may play a role in non-inherited cases as well.

THE BAD NEWS

— Felbamate, a drug introduced last year to control epileptic seizures, has begun to show dangerous side effects: 21 patients out of about 100,000 users have developed a rare blood disease called aplastic anemia; four have died. The FDA and the drug’s manufacturers have urged doctors to begin withdrawing patients from the medication, which is sold under the trade name Felbatol.

— The Centers for Disease Control has traced 247 cases of measles in 10 states to a single skier who visited a Colorado resort last spring. Most of the victims of this sometimes fatal disease were unvaccinated high school and college students.

Sources — GOOD: Science; New England Journal of Medicine; Nature Genetics. BAD: Food and Drug Administration; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.