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BMJ No 7131 Volume 316
Press Releases Saturday 21 February 1998
Embargoed: 00.01 hrs 20 February 1998 UK time
Unpasteurised milk is an unacceptable risk to public health
A good night's sleep is possible at high altitudes
Increasing need for early diagnosis of CJD
Changes in out of hours care
Unpasteurised milk is an unacceptable risk to public health
(One fifth of samples of unpasteurised milk are of unacceptable quality)In a letter published in this week's BMJ, de Louvois and Rampling report research into over one thousand samples of unpasteurised milk, bought in 242 retail outlets in England and Wales. The authors found that 41 samples from 26 separate retail outlets, contained potentially harmful bacteria, including campylobacter (19 samples), salmonella (five samples) and E coli 0157 (three samples). In total, samples from 128 of the 242 outlets contained either harmful bacteria or were of unacceptable hygienic quality which, the authors conclude, poses a risk to public health.
Contact:
John de Louvois, Head of Environmental Surveillance Unit,
Public Health
Laboratory Service,
London
Anita Rampling, Chairman,
Dairy Products Working Group
A good night's sleep is possible at high altitudes
(Effect of temazepam on oxygen saturation and sleep quality at high altitude: randomised placebo controlled crossover trial)
See Paper (abstract only), p 587
Poor sleep in people who have recently arrived at high altitude is common and may lead to daytime symptoms of drowsiness and reduced performance. Until recently, medical advice has been to avoid using sedatives at altitude, as they might provoke acute altitude sickness, accumulation of fluid on the brain or heart or cause a lack of oxygen to be supplied to the heart. In this week's BMJ Dubowitz reveals the results of a study of the effects of altitude on eleven people at the base camp of Mount Everest. The author found that 10mg of a short acting benzodiazepine (in this case the sedative "temazepam") improved the quality of sleep and reduced the changes in the saturation levels of oxygen in the body during sleep, without altering the overall mean oxygen saturation.
Contact:
Dr Gerald Dubowitz, Expedition Medical Officer,
British Mount Everest
Medical Expedition,
The Pinfold,
Hyssington,
Montgomery,
Powys,
Wales
Increasing need for early diagnosis of CJD
(Early identification of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Some promising approaches but no clear answers yet)
See Editorial, p 563
The medical world has long been calling for a method of early identification of cases variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, says Pocchiari in this week's BMJ. Exposure of the human population in Britain to the agent causing variant is likely to have occurred in the 1980s through beef products affected by bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), suggests the author. He notes that even though it is reassuring that there have only been 24 cases of variant CJD and that the number of new cases did not increase last year, he fears that it is impossible to predict how many people are now incubating the variant form of the disease. Pocchiari fears that the disease may be accidentally transmitted by medical procedures and in particular, cites concern about plasma derived products because they are prepared in huge pools, with the chance of including blood from potentially infected donors. If we were able to detect variant CJD at an early stage, batches of plasma suspected of contamination with the disease could be withdrawn. Definite diagnosis of all forms of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is still possible only by examination of the brain, one the patient has died, says Pocchiari and a simple but specific blood test is badly needed.
Contact:
Professor Maurizio Pocchiari, Professor of Virology,
Istituto Superiore di
Sanita,
Rome
(Diagnosis of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease by measurement of S100 protein in serum: prospective case-control study)
Dr Markus Otto, Group Leader,
Laboratory Diagnosis of CJD,
Neurologische
Klinik und Poliklinik,
Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen,
Germany
(Single photon emission computed tomography in the identification of new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease: case reports)
Contact:
Dr Rajith de Silva, Senior Registrar,
Department of Neurology,
Institute of
Neurosciences,
Southern General Hospital,
Glasgow
Embargo: 00.01 hrs Friday 20 February 1998
Please contact Public Affairs Division for the text of the paper & the authors for further comment
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