Health Highlights: Aug. 19, 2007

FDA Cancels Plans to Close More Than Half Its Field Labs

It could have a been a response to the Bob Dylan song, "The Times They are A-Changin'."

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has canceled plans to close more than half its field laboratories because its watchdog role over imported food has increased greatly in recent months.

Ironically, the lab reduction was originally planned to streamline the agency's food testing program, theAssociated Pressreports.

But a spate of incidents during the spring and summer involving possible contamination of imported ingestible items ranging from fish to toothpaste has caused the regulatory agency to put its reduction plans on hold.

A presidential panel is developing recommendations on how the FDA and other U.S. agencies can better guarantee the safety of imported foods and other items, TheA.P.reports. A Congressional subcommittee is also looking into the impact the field laboratory closings would have, the wire service says.

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Genetic Test Spots Patients at Risk From Viral Infections

A genetic method of identifying patients most likely to develop life-threatening complications from SARS, bird flu and other dangerous viral infections has been discovered by Canadian researchers.

They analyzed blood samples from 40 people infected with SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) during the 2003 outbreak in Toronto. They found that patients with one kind of interferon gene-expression pattern recovered quickly, while those with another pattern became seriously ill or died, theToronto Starreported.

Interferons -- proteins produced by white blood cells -- are the body's first-line defense against viruses. SARS patients with abnormal interferon patterns didn't produce enough antibodies to fight the virus, the study found. It was published Thursday in theJournal of Virology.

The findings provide new insight into how the immune system responds to SARS and could help doctors identify which patients with severe viral infections require specialized treatments, theStarreported.