News in brief - Oct. 27, 2003

No link between flu vaccine and MS relapses, report finds - Education campaign improves stroke treatment - NHGRI launches hunt for functional genes

No link between flu vaccine and MS relapses, report finds

The influenza vaccine does not trigger relapses of multiple sclerosis in adults with the disease, according to an Oct. 6 report on vaccine safety from the Institute of Medicine. In addition, the report confirmed a link between the specific influenza vaccine used in 1976 against "swine flu" and several hundred cases of the paralytic disorder Guillain-Barré syndrome in vaccinated adults.

Studies examined by an IOM committee suggest that flu vaccine formulations used after 1976 have no link to the syndrome, but inconsistencies in the data and design of studies preclude a more definite assessment, the report found.

"Because flu vaccines are so widely used in adults, the possibility that neurological disorders might be related to the vaccines must be given serious consideration," said committee chair Marie McCormick, MD, ScD, chair of the department of maternal and child health at Harvard's School of Public Health. "At the same time, it is just as important that the possible risks are weighed appropriately against the burdens of illness and death associated with flu, which ranked among the leading killers in the United States during the 1990s."

Education campaign improves stroke treatment

A focused educational campaign aimed at the public, physicians and other health care professionals greatly increased the use of an emergency clot-busting drug in stroke patients, according to a study reported in the Oct. 13 Archives of Internal Medicine. Many stroke victims who could be saved from death or lifelong disability by the quick delivery of emergency therapy do not get the treatment in time.

Since its introduction in 1996, tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) has helped tens of thousands of stroke victims who received it within three hours of the onset of their symptoms, researchers said. The study found that the educational campaign quintupled the use of the emergency drug in stroke patients in three Texas counties, so that 69% of eligible patients received the drug.

NHGRI launches hunt for functional genes

The National Human Genome Research Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, announced the initial grants for its three-year $36 million hunt for the bits of the human genome that are crucial to biological function. ENCODE, which stands for Encyclopedia of DNA Elements, will provide money to more than a dozen research institutions in the United States and Europe for the project's initial stages, which will look for ways to use existing technology and hopefully develop new technology for the task.

Sequencing of the human genome was completed in April, although an early draft was released in June 2000. Those behind the project said that discerning function is the crucial next step.