Male Circumcision Reduces Chances of Human Papillomavirus
This is the VOA Special English Health Report.
Male circumcision is the cutting off of
a small amount of skin from the tip of the penis. In many parts of the world it is done when a
baby is a few days old. However, in
other parts of the world it is unacceptable.
Studies
have shown that male circumcision can reduce a man’s risk of getting HIV, the
virus that causes AIDS. Now, a new study shows that it can also reduce a man’s
risk of getting human papillomavirus, or HPV. The research also shows
circumcision reduces the risk for another common sexually transmitted infection,
genital herpes. The study was published
in the New England Journal of Medicine.
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| A man waits for a circumcision in Mbabane, Swaziland |
The study was led by scientists at Johns
Hopkins University in Maryland and Makerere University in Uganda. It involved
about three thousand four hundred uncircumcised Ugandan men between the ages of
fifteen and forty-nine. None had HIV, genital herpes or HPV at the start of the
study. The men were split into two groups. One group got immediate
circumcisions. The others had it done two years later.
All the men were tested for sexually
passed diseases four times in the next two years. The researchers found that
those who had been circumcised were twenty-eight percent less likely to get
genital herpes than uncircumcised men.
They were thirty-three percent less likely to get HPV.
Ronald
Gray of Johns Hopkins was a lead investigator. He says the team will now study
whether female partners of the men in the study experienced any reduction of
risk of the diseases. This is especially important in the case of human
papillomavirus.
HPV causes cervical cancer. That disease kills almost three hundred
thousand women around the world every year.
It is the number one cancer killer of women in poor countries.
There
is a vaccine against the human papillomavirus.
American medical officials have advised that the vaccine, called
Gardasil, be given to girls around age eleven. But, like circumcision, it is an
issue of public debate. Some American parents argue that the vaccine will make
their girls more likely to have sex early.
Others question the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness.
Now,
Gardasil’s maker, Merck, has asked the Food and Drug Administration to approve
the drug for boys beginning at age nine. The complete treatment costs several
hundred dollars.
And that’s the VOA Special English Health Report,
written by Caty Weaver. I’m Bob Doughty.
US Treasury Details Plan to Rescue Banks
This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.
This
week American Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner announced details of a plan aimed
at removing billions of dollars in bad debts from American banks.
The
government program has two parts. One
involves buying groups of loans, like home mortgages. The second involves buying securities or
financial investments tied to loans. Under
the plan, the federal government will partner with private investors to buy bad
loans made by banks.
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| Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner speaking to lawmakers in Washington on Thursday |
These bad loans, also called toxic assets,
have weakened American banks and interfered with normal lending. The Treasury Department says it will offer
low interest loans to private investors so they will buy billions of dollars in
toxic assets and get American banks lending again. The Obama administration
says if the plan is a success, it could remove as much as one trillion dollars
in bad loans.
No one knows how much government
money might be needed. But during the
past six months, more than seven hundred billion dollars has been committed to
cleaning up the bad loans in the banking system.
The
plan was first announced last month without many details. The stock market
fell. However this week, news of the
plan sent prices higher on the American and international stock markets. Following the announcement Monday, share
prices of thirty major American industrial stocks increased almost seven
percent. This was the biggest one-day gain
since October. Mister Geithner said it will take several weeks for his plan to
be properly judged by financial markets.
The deep international economic
slowdown began in August, two thousand seven.
That is when failures in the American home mortgage market caused financial
markets to decrease lending.
First the American and then the world
economy slipped into recession. Since
then, several efforts to unlock credit have failed. Some experts say there will
be no other choice but short-term nationalization of troubled banks if the
Geithner plan fails to help the financial system.
This week
Secretary Geithner also called for increased powers to control other financial
businesses, like the insurance company American International Group. Mister Geithner said the Obama administration
will continue working with Congress on details of the proposal.
And
that’s the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Brianna Blake.
Transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our programs are at voaspecialenglish.com. I’m Steve Ember.
New Test Could Speed Tuberculosis Results
This is the VOA Special English Health Report.
Tuberculosis killed one million three
hundred thousand people around the world in two thousand seven. In addition, almost
half a million people who were infected with tuberculosis and with H.I.V. also died.
Those were listed as H.I.V. deaths.
An
estimated one-third of all people are infected with tuberculosis. But the
body’s natural defenses are usually strong enough to prevent an active case. Even
so, the bacteria remain in the body. If the immune system weakens at any point,
they begin to spread and then attack.
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| A doctor at a clinic in South Africa looks at a patient’s X-ray as part of a TB exam |
The
bacteria that cause TB usually settle in the lungs. They spread through the air
when the person coughs or sneezes or even sings and talks.
One of the most important things is to
identify cases quickly — especially drug-resistant cases, which are
increasing. The patients need to be kept away from other people and begin
treatment as soon as possible.
Multidrug resistant tuberculosis, or MDR-TB,
will not get better with antibiotics normally used for tuberculosis. So doctors
must use stronger, “second line” drugs when the first ones fail.
Extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, or XDR-TB, will not respond to any of
those drugs but might still be treatable.
Now,
researchers say they have found a much faster way to identify drug-resistant TB.
The study’s lead author is Graham Hatfull at the University of Pittsburgh in
Pennsylvania. He says current tests can sometimes take weeks in rural and poor
areas of the world. By that time, the patient may already be dead.
The scientists used viruses called
bacteriophages to speed the process. These viruses attack bacteria. The researchers
injected them with a gene that produces a green glow of light. They also
injected some with first line antibiotics and others with second line drugs.
Then they combined the bacteriophages with TB bacteria.
If the bacteria glow, it means they are drug resistant. The researchers say a
clinic worker could identify the glow with equipment available in many clinics.
Test results would not have to wait for the bacteria to grow in a laboratory
far away.
For now, the test itself needs more
testing. But Professor Hatfull is hopeful this will take months and not years.
Researchers from the Albert Einstein College of
Medicine in New York also took part in the study, financed by the Howard Hughes
Medical Institute. The findings appear in the journal PLoS ONE, published by
the Public Library of Science.
And
that’s the VOA Special English Health Report, written by Caty Weaver. I’m Steve
Ember.
