Sixty-two per cent of Africans do not have access to an improved sanitation facility -- a proper toilet -- which separates human waste from human contact, according to the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation. A global report will be published later this year, however, preliminary data on the situation in Africa was released today as part of World Water Day 2008. The Day, built around the theme that "Sanitation matters," seeks to draw attention to the plight of some 2.6 billion people around the world who live without access to a toilet at home and thus are vulnerable to a range of health risks.

"Sanitation is a cornerstone of public health," said WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan. "Improved sanitation contributes enormously to human health and well-being, especially for girls and women. We know that simple, achievable interventions can reduce the risk of contracting diarrhoeal disease by a third."

Although WHO and UNICEF estimate that 1.2 billion people worldwide gained access to improved sanitation between 1990 and 2004, an estimated 2.6 billion people - including 980 million children - had no toilets at home. If current trends continue, there will still be 2.4 billion people without basic sanitation in 2015, and the children among them will continue to pay the price in lost lives, missed schooling, in disease, malnutrition and poverty.

"Nearly 40% of the world's population lacks access to toilets, and the dignity and safety that they provide," said Ann M. Veneman, UNICEF Executive Director. "The absence of adequate sanitation has a serious impact on health and social development, especially for children. Investments in improving sanitation will accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goals and save lives."

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By Matthew MacLean

BERKELEY, CALIF. – Food may well be one of the biggest stories of the new century.

Witness the extensive news coverage of mad cow disease and E.coli contamination, and the controversies over growth hormones and genetic engineering. Modern-day Upton Sinclairs like Eric Schlossinger have given us exposés on the beef and fast-food industries. And the organic revolution has reached adulthood, with its coming out party on the cover of Newsweek last month.

So important has the food story become that the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, recently invited scientists, farmers, and government officials to talk to journalists about industrial food production, food-borne pathogens, and other issues in food writing.

Among those panelists was Michael Pollan – well-known for his groundbreaking books that explore the relationship between humans and nature. In "The Botany of Desire," Mr. Pollan looks at his garden in Connecticut and sees scheming arugula and plotting asparagus. We humans might think we control our agriculture and engineer our environment, but Pollan argues that plants use us as much as we use them. He follows the trail of the apple and the tulip to show how they cleverly manipulated American frontiersmen and Dutch merchants to extend their domain.

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By Daniel J. DeNoon

Syphilis rates are six times higher for African-American men than among white men

A raging epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases in gay/bisexual men drove U.S. syphilis rates up 12% in 2007 -- the seventh consecutive year of syphilis increases.

Meanwhile, a CDC study found that tests for another common STD -- gonorrhea -- miss one in three infections among men who have sex with men.

Those findings alone are troubling enough. But the picture becomes bleaker against the background of a surging HIV epidemic.

"This increase in syphilis represents a major concern for the health of gay and bisexual men," Kevin Fenton, MD, director of the CDC's HIV/AIDS center, said at a news conference. "STDs increase HIV transmission. And if a person is already HIV infected, syphilis can increase viral load [a measure of HIV activity in the body]."

Fenton announced the new STD data at this week's National STD Prevention Conference in Chicago.

Syphilis Surges Again The syphilis numbers are shocking because just a decade ago, the U.S. was on the verge of eliminating the disease. Now 3.7 out of every 100,000 Americans -- and 6.4 out of every 100,000 American males -- carry the infection, which can cause blindness, brain damage, and death if untreated.

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New DNA test could detect twice as many cases of STDs

By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN

Many cases of sexually transmitted diseases are escaping detection because gay men are not being tested each year as advised, federal health officials said Wednesday. And if the men do show up, the officials added, many doctors and clinics are not following screening recommendations.

But more cases could be detected if the government approved new ways to use a type of DNA test that is already on the market, the officials and researchers said in a news conference at a scientific meeting in Chicago.

They said the test, used in new ways, could detect twice as many cases of gonorrhea and chlamydia as standard tests.

Those diseases, along with syphilis, whose incidence continues to increase, are “a major threat to gay and bisexual men’s health,” said Dr. Kevin Fenton, a top official of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Fenton noted that such diseases increased the risk of contracting and spreading H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS.

Screening for sexually transmitted infections is a critical part of medical care for sexually active men. The C.D.C. recommends annual blood tests for H.I.V. and syphilis, and other tests for gonorrhea and chlamydia.

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California is spending $11 million to discourage use of the drug, which increases the risk of spreading HIV.

By Mary Engel

California drug officials launched an $11-million barrage of billboards, bus wraps, cable TV ads and a website Thursday aimed at discouraging gay men from using methamphetamine, an illegal stimulant linked to risky sexual behavior and the spread of HIV.

The drug, commonly known as "crystal" or "tina," has been a popular party drug in gay circles since the 1990s. A statewide survey, also released Thursday, found that crystal meth use was 11 times more common among gay men than in the California population overall. Fifty-five percent of 549 gay and bisexual men surveyed said they had used the drug, compared with 5% of the general population.

Mike Rizzo, manager of the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center's crystal meth recovery services, praised the state's campaign, especially the website videos of real people relaying the consequences of using crystal meth. Not only will they appeal to young people, he said, but they portrayed meth use in a way that "is real and relatable and not easily dismissed as being overly alarmist."

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In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers have determined that one out of every four teenage girls has a STD (Sexually Transmitted Disease). The study also found that when broken down by race, African-American girls have much higher rates of infection, with nearly half testing positive for at least one STD.

This is compared to 20 percent among both whites and Mexican-American girls.

Forty percent of the girls in the study acknowledged having sex, but many define that as intercourse only. Other types of intimate behavior can lead to infections as well, and Dr. John Douglas, director of the CDC's division of STD prevention, believes that many girls aren't being screened because they don't believe they are at risk.

"High STD rates among young women, particularly African-American young women, are clear signs that we must continue developing ways to reach those most at risk," he said.

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By Sr Journalist, Justin Smith

Being Gay has pressures all its own. Well think back to when you were in adolescence. Think of all the pressure that you had to face. Whether it was thinking that someone would suspect you're gay or that you were openly gay, you still had pressure on you. Well again I say think back to all those insecurities and add 50 pounds.

A new study It turns out more and more boys are falling victim to eating disorders, whether it is Binge Eating, Bulimia, or Anorexia. Boys are dieting purging and exercising more than ever. But also there

Men account for 25 percent of adults with anorexia or bulimia and 40 percent of binge eaters, according to a 2007 Harvard University study

The Gender Public Advocacy Coalition executive director Riki Wilchins had this to say in a public statement "We used to associate eating disorders and body issues with young girls," . "But now, boys are getting similar messages that you have to be perfect - buff, sculpted and muscular - to be attractive. And the result is boys are dieting, purging and becoming depressed about their bodies."

Of the men who have eating disorders, a substantial number identify themselves as gay or bisexual. It has been estimated that around 5 percent of the male population considers themselves to be homosexual, and yet some estimates say that up to 15 percent of these males have suffered from an eating disorder or symptoms of it at some time in their life, according to the International Journal of Eating Disorders.

This is not just a women's disease. Men are in more and more danger because men are less likely to go the doctor for treatment for anything. If you need it seek help.

By Joy Buchanan

Thelma Hyman is 90 years old, and she expects to be called Mrs. Hyman when she visits the doctor's office. But when the black woman recently visited the office of a white physician, he called her Thelma. "I'm not sure I'm going back to him," says the resident of Washington, D.C. "It's very important. Everyone has their own feelings about how you need to address them."

The exchange may seem inconsequential, but a growing amount of research is investigating whether these small cultural differences — most of them between white, male doctors and their diverse patients — could be a big reason for the nation's persistent health care disparities.

Thelma Hyman, 90, of Washington, D.C., who recently was disappointed when a physician referred to her by her first name. Researchers are studying cultural gaffes such as this to see if they are affecting health care disparities.

In 2005, New Jersey became the first state to require cultural-competence education for physicians to get licenses. California requires continuing medical education for doctors to include cultural and linguistic competency training.

The federal government is financing studies examining whether the training can help health care workers get diverse groups to comply better with doctors' orders.

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By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Cutting down on caffeine could help people with the most common form of diabetes better control their blood sugar levels, researchers said on Monday.

Giving caffeine to a small group of people with type 2 diabetes caused their levels of the blood sugar glucose to rise through the day, especially after meals, researchers at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, found.

"Caffeine appears to disrupt glucose metabolism in a way that could be harmful to people with type-2 diabetes," James Lane, a Duke medical psychologist who led the study, said in a telephone interview.

Caffeine is found in coffee, tea and many soft drinks.

Diabetes is a condition in which one's blood glucose levels are too high. Having too much glucose in the blood can damage the eyes, kidneys and nerves, and diabetes can also lead to heart disease, stroke and limb amputations.

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By Andrew Walker

Smoking has increased in Nigeria in recent years

Nigeria's government is suing three international tobacco firms for $44bn (£22bn) - the first such case in the developing world - due to start in the capital, Abuja.

It says tobacco manufacturers are putting unacceptable pressure on the country's health services, and companies are targeting younger and younger people in an attempt to replace former smokers in Europe and America.

British American Tobacco (BAT), Philip Morris and International Tobacco Ltd, deny the claims and say they are socially responsible companies who do not target children.

They question the massive sums demanded by the government and say the case "has no merit".

But government lawyers are convinced they have a strong case.

E-mails between tobacco firm employees to be shown to the court in the capital Abuja will reveal deliberate attempts to increase the number of "young and underage" smokers and attempts to influence lawmakers to keep tobacco sales unregulated, they say.

Four Nigerian state governments also plan to go to court early in 2008 to argue similar cases.

Cigarette smoking is widespread in Nigeria and BAT recently set up a factory in the West African country.

By January W. Payne

Depression knows nothing of skin color, yet cultural influences shape how people of different races deal with the illness. So says Terrie M. Williams, author of Black Pain: It Just Looks Like We're Not Hurting, which arrived in bookstores this month. Williams, an African-American, is a social worker by training and a public relations professional by trade—and has herself battled depression. In the African-American community, she says, there's a tendency to hide or ignore symptoms of depression, which include sadness, energy loss, feelings of worthlessness, thoughts of death or suicide, change in weight, and oversleeping or difficulty sleeping. That tendency means missed opportunities to hit the disorder with effective treatments, including talk therapy, antidepressant medication, or both. More than 20 million people in the United States are clinically depressed.

Large numbers of the poorest Americans living in the United States are suffering from some of the same parasitic infections that affect the poor in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, says the Editor-in-Chief of PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

In an article entitled "Poverty and Neglected Diseases in the 'Other' America," Professor Peter Hotez (George Washington University and the Sabin Vaccine Institute) says that there is evidence that the parasitic diseases toxocariasis, cysticercosis and toxoplasmosis as well as other neglected infections are very common in the United States, especially among poor and underrepresented minority populations living in inner cities and poor rural areas. Such infections are known as neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) because they afflict mostly poor people and are often ignored by public health officials and political leaders despite their enormous medical importance.

Toxocariasis, caused by the roundworm Toxocara canis, is now a common parasitic infection among inner city African-American and Hispanic children. Possibly as many as 23% of Americans living in poverty are exposed to this parasitic worm, in whom it causes a lung disease that resembles asthma, as well as liver and brain disease. Cysticercosis, caused by the tapeworm Taenia solium, is emerging as the leading cause of epilepsy among Hispanic populations in the US, and toxoplasmosis is an important cause of congenital birth defects among Mexican Americans and African Americans.

"Because these parasitic infections only occur among impoverished people and mostly underrepresented minorities in the US," he says, "I believe that there has been a lack of political will to study the problem. It is easier to allow these diseases of poverty to simply remain neglected."

Healthy Foods Are Too Expensive for Millions, Research Shows

By Lee Dye

It's hard not to spend too much time at the dinner table during the holiday season, getting fatter on our way to the poor house. Though we are lectured constantly about eating right, most of us don't. And the reason, it seems, is more a matter of economics than self-indulgence.

Eating right, new research shows, is getting so expensive that millions of Americans can't afford it.

In what is believed to be the first study of its kind, researchers at the University of Washington focused on the cost of eating foods that are rich in nutrients, and low in calories, like fresh vegetables, whole grains, fish and lean meats. That's the stuff we're told we have to eat if we are going to shed a few pounds and remain healthy.

But when the researchers checked prices at numerous stores around the Seattle area, they found that the good, healthy foods had soared in price over a two-year period, jumping by nearly 20 percent compared to a 5 percent increase in the overall food price inflation. And during that same period, high-calorie foods had remained about the same price, and in some cases had actually dropped.

By Erika Celeste

More than half a million women around the world die each year from breast cancer. But while it has received attention as one of the major killers of women, the disease also hits men. Erika Celeste reports from Mississippi, which has one of the highest rates of breast cancer in the U.S.

Entertainer and radio host Paul Ott is known across the country as an outdoorsman and conservationist. Though his wife died of cancer 25 years ago and his daughter was diagnosed with breast cancer just two years ago, the thought never crossed his mind that he might develop cancer, especially not breast cancer.

"I get a yearly check up," he says, "and have for 30 years, but my general practitioner has never checked my breasts. It took him all of two seconds to find that nodule and suggest that I have it taken out."

Ott found the lump by accident one day during a live radio broadcast with his daughter. "She just happened to brush across me to hand me a pencil or tablet and hit my breast and it hurt," he recalls. "She made a little statement. We have a lot of fun on the show and she joked and said 'Now Dad, you don't have breast cancer, for goodness sake'."

But that was exactly what Ott did have. While pain is not usually a symptom of breast cancer, the fact that Ott was sore from playing tennis in combination with the inflamed nodule made him think something wasn't right.

"Breast cancer is a disease that knows no boundaries," according to Dr. Cheryl Perkins. The senior clinical advisor at the Susan G. Komen For the Cure Foundation says it's a common misconception that men can't get breast cancer. It's rare - only about 1 percent of men will be diagnosed with breast cancer - but Perkins says it's important to get the word out, "because it does happen in men and oftentimes men do not appreciate the fact that it's not just a women's disease."

By Amy Norton

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Middle-aged and older adults who manage to stay agile may be less likely to suffer a stroke than their less-nimble peers, researchers reported Monday.

In a study of more than 13,000 men and women, British researchers found that those who reported good physical functioning at the study's start -- having little problem climbing stairs or carrying groceries, for instance -- were less likely to have a stroke over the next seven years.

The findings suggest that measures of physical functioning could help identify "apparently healthy" people who are at increased risk of stroke, the researchers report in the journal Neurology.

Program to Address African American Men and Cardiovascular Disease in Los Angeles

Los Angeles, CA (BlackNews.com) - Dr. Bill Releford, founder of the Diabetic Amputation Prevention Foundation (DAP), offered free diabetes and high-blood pressure screenings to African American men at over 22 black-owned barbershops throughout the Los Angeles area, Sat. Dec. 8 th.

The Black Barbershop Health Outreach Program, was sponsored in part by Bayer Pharmaceutical, One United Bank and KJLH 102.3 radio station, and  utilized the existing community based infrastructure of black-owned barbershops to conduct cardiovascular screenings to African American men as well as provide culturally appropriate educational materials about exercise and fitness, obesity, prostate cancer and HIV. Diabetes and high blood pressure screenings will be free to the public in all 22 locations from Watts to Wilshire Blvd. Additionally, a panel discussion was broadcasted live on KJLH 102.3 FM from a local barbershop in Inglewood.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — In a rare public health success story on the world's most beleaguered continent, Africa has slashed deaths from measles by 91 percent since 2000 thanks to an immunization drive.

The Measles Initiative said Thursday that worldwide measles deaths fell from an estimated 757,000 to 242,000 between 2000 and 2006, a reduction of 68 percent made possible by the remarkable gains in Africa, which cut fatalities from an estimated 396,000 to 36,000.

Gates Foundation puts up a $100 million for Rotary to match in fundraising

By Deborah L. Shelton

Aiming to inject $200 million into the global campaign to eradicate polio, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced Monday that it is awarding a $100 million challenge grant to the Evanston-based Rotary Foundation.

The Rotary Foundation said it plans to match the Gates grant dollar-for-dollar through fundraising over the next three years. In the first year alone, Rotary expects to spend $100 million on immunization projects in the four remaining countries where polio is still endemic.

The grant is one of the largest challenge grants ever awarded by the Gates Foundation and is the largest given by any organization to Rotary. The foundation is the nonprofit charitable arm of Rotary International, which has contributed $633 million to efforts to stamp out polio.

Eradicating the crippling and potentially fatal disease would represent a landmark public health achievement, and some global health experts believe the world stands at the brink of seeing that goal realized. Other experts are not so sure.

Scientists and public health professionals have been debating whether eradication is possible. Some have argued that resources should be directed at trying to contain the disease, which would be far less costly than trying to eliminate it.

That idea was dismissed during Monday's announcement.

"Eradicating polio is an achievable goal," said William Gates Sr., co-chairman of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

By Kerry Grens

African American heart drug study raises questions about benefits of racially targeted trials

A recent study on the effects of a hypertension drug in African Americans has shone the spotlight on the value of single race studies in medicine. While some praise such studies for reaching out to groups disproportionately affected by a disease, others say grouping trial participants by race attributes health disparities to the wrong cause.

While clinical trials often look at associations between race and outcomes, it is uncommon for them to be prospectively race-specific. This study compared several different doses of the drug nebivolol - a beta blocker approved in a number of European countries - against placebo, and found the drug significantly lowered blood pressure in African Americans. Beta blockers are thought to be less effective in African American patients than in white Americans.

Race-based studies offer "a window of opportunity to understand nuances in medicine," Keith Ferdinand, the chief science officer of the Association of Black Cardiologists, told The Scientist. In addition to a weaker response to beta blockers, African Americans have a higher prevalence and a more severe pathophysiology of heart disease than do white Americans. While medical outcomes might be due to factors such as access to care, economic stress, or diet, they tend to segregate by race, which therefore provides a useful marker for testing the efficacy of drugs, Ferdinand said.

By MONICA HAYNES

The recent death of Kanye West's mother, Dr. Donda West, following cosmetic surgery, has brought forth the call once again for prospective patients to do their homework.

West reportedly consulted with two surgeons, including Dr. Jan Adams, the one who conducted her surgery.

Pittsburgh plastic surgeon Dr. Leo McCafferty, who offered his sympathies to the West family, did not want to comment on this particular case since all the facts are not known.

"In a general sense I think people need to understand all surgery, plastic surgery, does pose some risk and it is important that patients do investigate their physician, and board certification is an excellent area to start, " he said.