Health Highlights: May 10, 2008
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Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors ofHealthDay:
Flu Vaccine Makers Preparing 143 Million Doses for Next Season
Hoping they picked the right viruses this time, the five companies that make influenza vaccine plan to offer at least 143 million doses to Americans for the 2008-2009 flu season, theAssociated Pressreports.
The 2007-2008 flu season, which is just ending, was the worst in four years for adult deaths, the wire service reports, largely because the viruses used in the flu vaccine were ineffective against many of the viruses that actually circulated in the population.
The viruses included in the vaccine each season are determined by scientists who have had a good record of predicting accurately, theA.P.reports, but two of the three viruses this season were wrong and were only 44 percent effective against the flu that circulated in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC and the American Medical Association are hosting a flu vaccine "summit" meeting in Atlanta next week, the wire service reports. Each year in the United States more than 200,000 people are hospitalized from the flu, and an average of 36,000 deaths occur, according the U.S. government statistics.
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Marijuana Linked to Teen Mental Health Problems
Teens who've reported being depressed at some point in the past year are more than twice as likely (25 percent) to have used marijuana than those who weren't depressed (12 percent), according to a White House Office of National Drug Control Policy report to be released Friday.
The paper also said that marijuana use by teens increases their risk of developing a mental disorder by 40 percent and that teens who use marijuana at least once a month for a year are three times more likely to have suicidal thoughts than those who don't use the drug, theAssociated Pressreported.
In addition, teens who smoke marijuana when feeling depressed are more than twice as likely as other teens -- eight percent compared with three percent -- to abuse or become addicted to marijuana, the report said.
The report authors analyzed data from about a dozen previous studies that examined marijuana use.
