Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 15, 1995 TAG: 9506150050
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-13 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
NEW YORK - The pesticide DDT might promote abnormalities in development of the testes and penis, a study suggests.
DDT or similar-behaving substances may also help explain a rise in testicular cancer and a possible fall in men's sperm production over the past 50 years or so, said William Kelce, a research biologist for the Environmental Protection Agency.
DDT is among a group of estrogen-mimicking chemicals in the environment that have been suggested as culprits for increases in abnormalities in the penis and testes and the trends in testicular cancer and sperm counts.
The new study was done in test tubes and rats. Researchers found that high doses of the main substance produced by the natural breakdown of DDT interfere with male hormones. That, in turn, hampers sexual development in rats.
- Associated Press
Cancer drug raised concern before trial
Doctors in Boston and Houston raised questions about the safety of an experimental cancer drug even before its trial on 17 patients ended with the death of a New York man last week and the hospitalization of 11 others, sources close to the drug trial said Tuesday.
In Houston, safety concerns apparently delayed testing of Interleukin-12, developed by Genetics Institute of Cambridge, Mass., to treat kidney cancer. While the trial proceeded as planned in New York, Chicago, Indianapolis and at Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston, sources said Dr. Michael Atkins at the medical center raised concerns in May about the way the drug was to be administered.
According to several people involved with the trials, Genetics Institute changed the way the drug was administered in the months between a successful safety trial and the disastrous effectiveness trial. The new method resulted in a full dosage entering a patient's system more quickly than in the earlier trial.
Atkins could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
The Cambridge biotechnology company aborted the second trial last week, after five of the 17 study participants had to be hospitalized with apparent complications from the drug's injection. A Glen Cove, N.Y., man subsequently died. Seven other people remain hospitalized. It is not clear how many of those are in Boston.
- The Boston Globe
Transplant drug wins approval
SAN FRANCISCO - A new drug that helps prevent transplant patients from rejecting their new kidneys won government approval Monday after extensive testing at the University of California in San Francisco and 14 other medical centers world-wide.
The drug helps to suppress the human immune system, whose specialized cells mobilize to reject all transplanted tissues as if they were foreign invaders like disease-causing viruses and bacteria.
The drug is called mycophenolate mofetil and it has been given the trade name CellCept by Hoffman-LaRoche, its manufacturer. Drug company spokesmen said the compound will be made available to kidney transplant teams at hospitals around the country today.
- San Francisco Chronicle
Drug could protect against carcinogen
WASHINGTON - Eli Lilly & Co. has discovered a compound that may one day help offset a dangerous side effect of the potent breast cancer drug tamoxifen - its ability to cause deadly uterine cancer.
The compound, called raloxifene, is in final testing in people as a drug to fight the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis. But Lilly researchers also tested its cancer effect - and announced Wednesday that in animals, the chemical appears to protect against tamoxifen-induced uterine cancer.
Although the cancer studies so far are only in rats, they excited scientists who examined the data at the annual meeting of The Endocrine Society.
``You can't hold off cancer in one tissue only to bring it on in another tissue,'' explained Dr. Willis Samson, physiology chair at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine. ``This has got great potential ... as a way to get rid of that dangerous side effect of a drug that's tremendously important.''
- Associated Press
by CNB