FINDINGS

Data Show HPV Vaccine Targets More Strains

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New data show that a vaccine against the virus that causes cervical cancer partially blocks infection by 10 strains of the virus, in addition to the four types the vaccine targets.

That boosts protection -- at least partially -- to 90 percent of strains causing the deadly cancer, according to data presented yesterday at a medical conference by Merck, the maker of Gardasil.

Merck called it the first evidence of any vaccine providing cross-protection against other strains of the human papilloma virus, or HPV.

Stephanie Blank, a gynecologic oncologist at the New York University Cancer Institute, said the finding could encourage more widespread use of Gardasil in developing countries, where some of the additional strains are more widespread and women rarely get Pap smears to detect early, curable cancers.

Gardasil is approved for sale in 85 countries and pending approval in 40 more; it has racked up about $1 billion in sales since its June 2006 U.S. launch. GlaxoSmithKline is awaiting approval of its own vaccine, Cervarix.

There are more than 60 strains of HPV. About 15 are thought to cause cervical cancer.

U.S. Abandons Plan on Risk-Gauging Standards

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The Bush administration scrapped its plan to impose more uniform standards for the risk assessments used to evaluate government regulations that protect health, safety and the environment.

The proposal, released for public comment in January, was criticized by the National Academy of Sciences, which argued against a one-size-fits-all approach for science-based agencies to evaluate the need for regulation.

"It was widely criticized," said Rick Melberth, director of regulatory policy at OMB Watch, a Washington-based nonprofit group that promotes government accountability. "It was a very flawed document."

The administration instead is telling agencies and departments to use guidelines developed in 1995 under the Clinton administration.

Agencies conduct risk assessments, which involve scientific analysis to identify risks related to factors such as exposure to chemicals, to determine whether to issue regulations.

Some Human Ancestors Evolved Outside Africa

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Fossils of small-skulled, long-limbed human ancestors from Eastern Europe suggest that some evolution leading to modern humans occurred outside Africa, scientists said in the journal Nature.

The 1.8 million-year-old skeletal remains of three adults and one adolescent, found in Dmanisi, Georgia, hint that humans migrated out of Africa in a less-evolved state than scientists had believed, reported researchers led by David Lordkipanidze, an anthropologist at the Georgian National Museum in Tblisi.

Scientists had thought the first human species to migrate from Africa were relatively close to the modern species, Homo sapiens, or perhaps a relative called Homo erectus, Lordkipanidze said. The findings suggest that at least some left the continent as smaller-brained, more apelike creatures.

"This tells us that the first humans who left Africa were much more primitive than we thought," Lordkipanidze said. "It's more proof that human evolution occurred outside Africa."

Lordkipanidze said the scientists studied the most nearly complete collection of human remains more than 300,000 years old.

-- From News Services