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Canada And U.S. Reach Agreement To Create More Opportunities For Organic Producers
Canada and the United States have reached an agreement that will give organic producers access to more markets and make sure Canadian families can find more organic products in their grocery stores.
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Nevada Assembly Passes Bill To Protect Physicians On J-1 Visas
The Nevada Assembly last week voted to approve a bill (SB 229) that would authorize the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services to stop the exploitation of foreign physicians who have come to the state to provide care to residents in underserved areas, the Las Vegas Sun reports. The measure now goes to Gov. Jim Gibbons (R) for his approval (Allen, Las Vegas Sun, 5/28). A September 2007 Sun investigation of the J-1 visa program found that some foreign physicians were forced by their sponsors to work up to 100 hours per week, and were being "cheated out of their salaries" and "diverted from the patients" in underserved areas whom they were supposed to help (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 8/6/08).The legislation would make violations of the J-1 program more clearly punishable under state law and prosecutable by the attorney general"s office; charge J-1 physician sponsors a fee to cover the cost of enforcing the law; and protect whistle-blowers (Las Vegas Sun, 5/28).
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Sharing Cancer Genetic Test Results With Children
Mothers who share cancer genetic test results with their children are more satisfied with their decision than those who decide not to tell, according to a new study by researchers at the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University Medical Center. The study also shows, for the first time, what role fathers play in disclosing mother"s test results. These findings will be presented at the 45th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Orlando May 29 - June 2.
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Questioning The Use Of Muscle Rubs

There is not enough evidence to support using gels and creams containing rubefacients for chronic and acute pain, according to a systematic review by Cochrane Researchers. Rubefacients cause irritation and reddening of the skin, due to increased blood flow. The review focused on formulations containing salicylates, which are widely prescribed or sold over the counter as topical treatments for sports injuries and muscle pain. "At present, due to a lack of high quality evidence, we can"t say exactly how effective rubefacients are for acute injuries and there are certainly other more effective treatments which could be prescribed for use in chronic conditions like osteoarthritis," says lead researcher Andrew Moore, of the Nuffield Department of Anaesthetics at the University of Oxford in the UK. There are over a million prescriptions each year for rubefacient gels and creams such as Movelat. As with Movelat, the rubefacient compounds in many of these products are salicylates, which, while they are related to aspirin, may not work in the same way, especially when applied to the skin. They are referred to as "counter-irritants" because it is thought that they offset localised pain through local skin irritation. The review analysed data from 16 trials for acute and chronic pain, which together included 1,276 people. Only salicylates were studied and trials were generally small. Results from four studies showed topical salicylates performed better than placebos against acute pain, but excluding lower quality studies meant the results were not statistically significant. When used for chronic conditions, salicylates performed better than placebos. However, only one in six patients with chronic pain benefited substantially from using the muscle rubs compared to one in three using non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. "Larger and higher quality controlled trials of topical rubefacients are needed to establish whether these treatments really work. We also need more studies on other rubefacients as we were only able to assess the effectiveness of the salicylate formulations in this review," says Moore. "But it is important to remember that not all analgesic gels or creams are the same, and for others there is very good evidence of effectiveness. Those will be dealt with in other reviews presently being finalised." Jennifer Beal Wiley-Blackwell


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