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Volume 4, Number 9
1 March 2004

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FAMILY PLANNING/REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH RESEARCH

How Strong is the Evidence of a Link between Environmental Chemicals and Adverse Effects on Hhuman Reproductive Health? (research article)
This article, from the British Medical Journal, shows that little definitive data links human reproductive disorders or cancers with exposure to environmental synthetic chemicals; the authors write that this may reflect difficulties in obtaining such data or the genuine absence of effects. Reproductive effects of environmental chemicals in (aquatic) wildlife are well established; these may provide sentinels for human effects, especially on the fetus. They discuss several recent studies that have shown associations between prenatal or postnatal exposure to certain pesticides or phthalates and reproductive disorders in humans. They review recent discoveries that raise possibilities of effects of common environmental chemicals on endogenous hormones.

Measuring Family Planning Sustainability at the Outcome and Programme Levels (research abstract)
This paper examines the validity of two indices of sustainability: family planning program sustainability (PSI) and outcome sustainability (OSI) by applying their original method to recent data. The authors write that the indices succeed in identifying the directional path of program and outcome sustainability. Close correlations are found between PSI and OSI predicted values and actual program and outcome values. The indices provide a repeatable method for measuring sustainability, although they are sensitive to data measurement errors. The indices provide a policy tool for funding decisions but should be used with other data sources to judge sustainability.

The Importance of Screening and Monitoring: The Standard Days Method and Cycle Regularity (research abstract)
This article explores the importance of the guidelines for screening potential users for cycle regularity and for monitoring users to determine continued method eligibility. The authors used a large existing dataset from a World Health Organization study of the Ovulation Method was used to estimate the theoretical probability of pregnancy using the Standard Days Method, with and without screening and monitoring. Results suggest that current screening and monitoring procedures are useful in identifying women for whom the Standard Days Method is less effective. Strict adherence to these procedures is ideal, but even women who do not meet the cycle-regularity guidelines would have a relatively low probability of pregnancy.

Human Papillomavirus and Oral Cancer: The International Agency for Research on Cancer Multicenter Study (research abstract)
Related news article: Oral Sex Linked to Mouth Cancer
Although the risk is small and it is more likely to result from heavy drinking and smoking, scientists have uncovered evidence that oral sex can cause mouth cancer. The scientists studied more than 1,600 patients from Europe, Canada, Australia, Cuba and the Sudan with oral cancer and more than 1,700 healthy people. They found that patients with oral cancer containing a strain of the HPV known as HPV16 were three times more likely to report having had oral sex than those without the virus strain.

FAMILY PLANNING/REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH NEWS

Male Contraceptive Trial Launched (news article)
Related news article: Male Pill Predicted in Five Years
Men in the UK are being recruited to try out a new form of male contraception in a major study.

Uganda to Produce Female Condoms (news article)
An American company, Zebra Foundation Inc., plans to manufacture female panty condoms in Uganda. The move would make Uganda the first country outside the US to make the condoms under the Zebra trade-mark.

Condom Retailer First to Ban Products Containing Nonoxynol-9 Spermicide (press release)
CondomDepot.com, one of the nation's leading condom retailers, has announced that they have removed all products containing the popular spermicide nonoxynol-9 from their shelves. They are the first major condom retailer to drop the controversial spermicide from their shelves.

Manufacturer Pushes for Sponge Return to U.S. (feature article)
This article relates how the current manufacturer of the contraceptive sponge remains hopeful the popular over-the-counter contraceptive will return to the US market in a matter of months.

India: Expensive Female Condom Has No Takers (news article)
After its launch a fortnight ago, Hindustan Latex Ltd's female condom is still to find takers in India. This article states that, priced at Rs 45 per piece (US$1), it is too expensive for its target users: sex workers, homosexuals and sexually active people who are at risk of sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS. The ministry of health and family welfare is still undecided about subsiding it and making it a part of its contraception promotion and distribution program. And the National AIDS Control Organisation says it's too expensive.

Rio Carnival Guru Fired after Condom-themed Parade (news article)
A Rio de Janeiro samba school on Wednesday sacked its Carnival artistic director whose pro-condom parade had upset the Catholic church and whose Kama Sutra float had been censored as too steamy even for Rio's annual Bacchanalia.

Sex Really is All in the Mind for Women (news article)
It is the confirmation that men have long dreaded. Scientists have concluded that women achieve most sexual satisfaction through the stimulation of their brain and not any other organ. After 8 years of tests involving 3,000 women, Pfizer, the company behind Viagra, the little blue pill that has transformed men's sex lives, has abandoned efforts to prove that the drug works for females, too. Its exhaustive research has concluded that men and women have a fundamentally different relationship between arousal and desire. A women's arousal is triggered by a network of emotional, intellectual, and relationship-based factors rather than the simple physical response required by a man, it says. Dr. Mitra Boolel, the leader of the company's sex research team, admitted: "The brain is the crucial sexual organ in a woman."

FAMILY PLANNING/REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH LAW AND POLICY

The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief: U.S. Five Year Global HIV/AIDS Strategy (resource material)
Related news article: US AIDS Relief Plan Launched With $350 Million
Related news article: More Details on Where US Treatment Cash Will Go
The US has announced the first installment of a $15 billion, five-year, program promised last year by President Bush to fight the disease worldwide. The document, available in .pdf format, is intended to define the strategic direction of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. The plan targets $9 billion to speed up prevention, treatment and care services in 14 countries in Africa and the Caribbean. The countries are Botswana, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Guyana, Haiti, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. The plan also earmarks $5 billion over five years to bilateral programs in more than 100 other countries and adds $1 billion to programs to fight malaria and tuberculosis.

Botswana: Venson Calls for HIV/AIDS Wards (news article)
Specially elected MP Pelonomi Venson has called on government to set aside some hospital wards exclusively for HIV/AIDS patients. She said when contributing to the debate on the Ministry of Presidential Affairs and Public Administration's 2004/2005 budget allocation in Parliament on Friday that the move "is a necessary discrimination" just like it was done with TB patients in the past.

South Africa: HIV/AIDS: Government Has No Regrets (news article)
The ANC, which has been accused in the past by opposition parties of delaying the provision of anti-retroviral drugs to HIV/Aids patients, says it "does not" regret the manner in which it has dealt with the epidemic. The ruling party this week said it was unfazed by opposition parties who continue to make the HIV/AIDS issue a cornerstone of their election campaigns for the forthcoming general elections on April 14.

China's First Local Law on AIDS Prevention to Take Effect in Yunnan (news article)
China's first local law on the prevention of AIDS will take effect in Yunnan Province in southwest China on Monday. According to the law, the province will provide disposable injection needles for drug users and condoms will be available either for free or at a lower price in all its hotels and entertainment venues, like night clubs, as part of its effort to control the spread of AIDS. In addition, AIDS prevention has been written into the duties of all levels of government in the province in the law, which alsorequires the government to set up a special organization on AIDS control, consisting of officials from the departments like public security, health, education, and supervision.

India: Holes in Free-condom Policy (news article)
Condoms rupturing during intercourse is a real problem. City residents are complaining of condoms giving way during the act up to half the time. About 75% of the persons spoken to said they would rather buy good quality condoms from the market. However, the condom distribution program being carried out by the State AIDS Control Society is provided free of cost.

Morocco Adopts Landmark Family Law Supporting Women’s Equality (news article)
The government of Morocco has adopted a new landmark Family Law supporting women’s equality and granting them new rights in marriage and divorce, among others. Polygamy is subject to a judge’s authorization and to stringent legal conditions, making the practice nearly impossible. In addition, the woman has the right to impose a condition in the marriage contract requiring that her husband refrain from taking other wives.

Zimbabwe: 'Rape is OK. It Helps Us to Train People' (feature article)
This article reveals how thousands of youths are being taught to rape, maim, torture and kill in Zimbabwe's terror training camps. And now president Robert Mugabe intends to make the camps compulsory for all the country's young men and women.

HIV/AIDS RESEARCH

Seroprevalence of Human Herpesvirus-8 in Blood Donors from Different Geographical Regions of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile (research abstract)
The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of antibodies against HHV-8 antigens in blood donors of South America. Serum samples from 2,470 blood donors from Argentina, Brazil, and Chile corresponding to five geographic regions were studied by indirect immunofluorescence assay. Seroprevalence rate was 3.7% in the entire blood donor population distributed as follows: Argentina, 4% (Buenos Aires city, 4.3%; Bahia Blanca, 2.4%; and Córdoba, 4%), Campinas (Brazil), 2.8%; and Santiago de Chile, 3%.

Drug Injectors and Dealers in Odessa, Ukraine (PubMed abstract)
This article reports on the results observed in a series of focus groups and in-depth interviews with injection drug users and drug dealers in Odessa, Ukraine. The purpose of this study was to further understand the context in which HIV-related risk behaviors occur in order to recommend intervention strategies that might reduce the rate of new infections.

Advances in Prevention of Mother-to-child HIV Transmission (PubMed abstract)
This review summarizes recent major studies and new development on the prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission.

HIV/AIDS NEWS

AIDS: What Does the Latest Research Say? (feature article)
This feature article reports on presentations from the 11th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, which was held in San Francisco. Among the news coming from the conference was that a new batch of HIV/AIDS drugs was under development.

Zimbabwe to Provide Free AIDS Drugs (news article)
Government hospitals in Zimbabwe's two major urban centers, Harare and Bulawayo, will start providing free antiretroviral (ARV) anti-AIDS drugs next month, in partnership with UNAIDS, the World Health Organisation (WHO), and the local health ministry. The program, unveiled last week, is part of WHO's "Three by Five" plan to give three million people access to ARVs by 2005.

AIDS Threat Growing Throughout Europe (press release)
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Related resource material: Speech by UNAIDS Executive Director
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Related news article: Eastern Europe and Russia Face World's Fastest Growing HIV Epidemic
This press release, issued by the UN, World Bank, and Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, calls on European Ministers to scale up HIV prevention and treatment programs.

AIDS Researchers Investigate Anti-HIV Protein in Monkeys (news article)
Scientists say they've discovered how some monkeys resist infection with the AIDS virus, a finding that might lead to a treatment that blocks HIV in people.

AIDS, Environment and Gender Gap to Hamper China's Development: UN (news article)
HIV/AIDS, environmental sustainability, and an ever-widening gender gap are the three major hurdles facing China in its development and poverty alleviation efforts, according to a leading UN official.

African Girls Taught to Say No to 'Sugar Daddies' (news article)
California researchers are testing a new AIDS prevention tool in Zimbabwe: a financial prophylactic aimed at shielding young girls from sexual liaisons that transmit the virus. The program, Shaping the Health of Adolescents in Zimbabwe, or SHAZ, offers access to economic security through training, loans, and jobs.

HIV/AIDS, Development, and Resources: Perspective from a South African Physician (feature article)
This article brings together one physician's opinion on the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa and how resources and development work are intertwined.

"India Should Lead in HIV/AIDS Management" (news article)
With the affordable treatment mode available for HIV/AIDS in India, doctors should be taking the lead in monitoring and management of the disease, said Dr. Paul Volberding, one of the co-discoverers of the first HIV cases in the world. Dr. Volberding, attending a closed door two-day conference on AIDS in India, said India should also be using information dissemination as an important tool in the management of the disease.

Tanzania: HIV Positive Women Abandoned by Spouses (news article)
Tanzania women living with HIV/AIDS are more likely to be abandoned by spouses and family members as compared to men, a new study by the Tanzanian Tanzania Media Women's Association on HIV/AIDS and gender-based violence reveals.

MATERNAL AND CHILD HEALTH RESEARCH

Predicting Vaginal Birth after Cesarean Delivery: A Review of Prognostic Factors and Screening Tools (research abstract)
The authors reviewed articles to identify the factors associated with vaginal delivery after trial of labor in patients with a prior cesarean and to evaluate the effectiveness of existing screening tools. Thirteen of the 100 eligible studies provided fair to good quality evidence for the predictive nature of 12 factors. Two of the six screening tools were considered promising and demonstrated reproducibility through validation studies. However, the authors found little high-quality data to guide clinical decisions regarding which women are likely to have a successful trial of labor.

Supporting Women in Labor: Analysis of Different Types of Caregivers (research abstract)
The authors conducted a critical review of the English language literature to describe the current state of knowledge on different types of labor support persons. Eight randomized trials met the selection criteria for inclusion in their analysis. These trials investigated untrained and trained lay women, female relatives, nurses, lay midwives, and student lay midwives as labor support persons. They found that support by untrained lay women starting in early labor and continuing into the postpartum period demonstrates the most consistent beneficial effect on childbirth outcomes. They caution that more randomized controlled trials are warranted before firm conclusions may be drawn.

Caesarean Section Rates in the Arab Region: A Cross-national Study (research abstract)
This study estimated population- and hospital-based caesarean section rates in 18 Arab countries and examined the association between these rates and important indicators of socioeconomic development. Data on caesarean section were based on the most recent population-based surveys undertaken in each country. Results revealed that four Arab countries had population-based caesarean rates below 5%, while only three countries had rates above 15%. The remaining 11 countries had caesarean rates ranging between 5% to 15%. Higher hospital-based rates were reported for all countries. Highly significant associations were observed between population caesarean rates and female literacy, percentage urban, infant mortality rate, and the proportion of physicians per 100,000 people. The authors noted that the "caesarean section epidemic" observed in countries of Latin America is not yet evident in the 18 Arab countries examined.

Physical and Sexual Abuse of Women Before, During, and After Pregnancy (research abstract)
This study examined patterns of physical and sexual abuse before, during, and after pregnancy through a community-based interview survey in 32 communities of the Tianjing, Liaoning, Henan, and Shannxi provinces in China. The overall prevalence of physical and sexual abuse was 11.7%. The prevalence of physical and sexual abuse before pregnancy was 8.5%, compared with 3.6% during pregnancy and 7.4% during an average postpartum period of 11 months. Most abuse was recurrent and not severe.

Randomised Controlled Trial of Effect of Hands and Knees Posturing on Incidence of Occiput Posterior Position at Birth (research abstract)
This study found that hands and knees exercise with pelvic rocking from 37 weeks' gestation to the onset of labor did not reduce the incidence of persistent occiput posterior position at birth.

MEN'S HEALTH RESEARCH

Characteristics of Men Receiving Vasectomies In the United States, 1998-1999 (research article)
The authors conducted a nationwide, practice-based survey of 719 men receiving vasectomies. They found that low-income, minority, and less educated men were underrepresented among vasectomy recipients. The majority of men were married or cohabiting (91%), non-Hispanic and white (87%), and educated beyond high school (81%). Half of men reported choosing vasectomy over a reversible method because it is the most secure means of preventing pregnancy, and 62% chose vasectomy over tubal ligation because the procedure is simpler and safer. The authors conclude that despite the diversity of the US population, vasectomy recipients are a homogeneous group.

MEN'S HEALTH NEWS

A Man's Choice (feature article)
This feature article from Radio Netherlands presents various men and the choices they make for contraception. There is an accompanying audio program from the radio broadcast (30 minutes in length).

POPULATION RESEARCH

Aging: How Long Will We Live? Demographers Refine Estimates (research summary)
Two demographers who have analyzed past and projected trends in mortality question the accuracy of the underlying calculations that generate life expectancy figures. They say that these numbers, based on one of the oldest and most fundamental tools of demography, may be overestimated by up to a few years in contemporary countries with high life expectancy.

POPULATION NEWS

Pakistan: Population Secretary Unsatisfied with Department’s Work (news article)
Punjab Population Welfare Secretary Khawaja M. Naeem on Tuesday appealed to the private sector to help his department control population growth, saying the department has "failed". He said the "typical attitude of government staff" was the basic reason for no progress.

UAE Records Sharp Decline in Infant Mortality Rate (news article)
The UAE is getting far less babies than it had 30 years ago, but its population has rapidly grown because of a sharp cut in infant mortality rate and better life expectancy. From 35 per 1,000 in 1970, the birth rate in the UAE declined to 30 per 1,000 in 1980 and plunged to only 17 per 1,000 in 2000 before stabilizing in the past 3 years.

WOMEN'S HEALTH RESEARCH

Weight Gain, Body Mass Index, Hormone Replacement Therapy, and Postmenopausal Breast Cancer in a Large Prospective Study (research abstract)
Related news article: Weight Gain Predicts Breast Cancer Risk
A new study has found that gaining weight may be a serious risk factor for breast cancer. The study found that women who gained 21 to 30 pounds after the age of 18 were 40% ore likely to get breast cancer than women who gained 5 pounds or less. Women who gained more than 70 pounds had twice the risk of cancer of women who stayed within 5 pounds of what they weighed at 18.

Female Genital Cutting: Potential Data Biases in Studies Exposed (research summary)
Recent research has found that women interviewed about FGC may falsely deny or falsely confirm having undergone the procedure.

Female Genital Mutilation in Nigeria (research abstract)
The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence and distribution of female genital mutilation (FGM) procedures in a Nigerian population. Five hundred consecutive women were evaluated for evidence of FGM according to the WHO classification system. Thirty-four percent of women were found to have some type of FGM. Type I and Type II procedures were the most common. Fifty-five percent of women were unaware they had FGM, and 62% with FGM did not know the reason. Twenty-one percent of women said they were going to have FGM on their daughters.

Role of Human Papilloma Virus Testing in Cervical Cancer Prevention (research abstract)
This article includes updates on HPV, cervical cancer screening, and HPV testing technology.

Female Genital Tuberculosis in Ethiopia (research abstract)
Researchers studied the occurrence of female genital tuberculosis (FGTB) in Ethiopia and compared the different methods available for its diagnosis.

YOUTH HEALTH RESEARCH

The Estimated Direct Medical Cost of Sexually Transmitted Diseases Among American Youth, 2000 (research article)
Related news article: Sexually Transmitted Disease Affects Mainly 15-24 Year Olds in US
Researchers synthesized the existing literature on STD costs to estimate the lifetime medical cost per case of eight major STDs: HIV, human papillomavirus (HPV), genital herpes simplex virus type 2, hepatitis B, chlamydia, gonorrhea, trichomoniasis, and syphilis. They then estimated the total burden of disease by multiplying these cost-per-case estimates by the approximate number of new cases of STDs acquired by youth aged 15-24. The total estimated burden of the 9 million new cases of these STDs that occurred among 15- to 24-year-olds in 2000 was $6.5 billion (in year 2000 dollars). Viral STDs accounted for 94% of the total burden ($6.2 billion), and nonviral STDs accounted for 6% of the total burden ($0.4 billion). HIV and HPV were by far the most costly STDs in terms of total estimated direct medical costs, accounting for 90% of the total burden ($5.9 billion).

YOUTH HEALTH NEWS

Chinese Students' Sexual Evolution (feature article)
Chinese students are experiencing a revolution in their ideas and knowledge of sex, according to a large-scale survey conducted at the end of last year. Though students are far more sexually aware than they were 10 years ago, few students have had formal sex educations at schools. They admitted that most of their sex knowledge came from the Internet and sleazy publications. The survey, conduced by the Chinese Youth and Children Research Center, involved a total number of 5,000 college students across the country.

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Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: The INFO Project

Volume 4, Number 9 1 March 2004