Preventive Medicine

Healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson is jumping into the increasingly hot vaccine business by taking an 18% stake in Dutch biotechnology company Crucell and focusing more on preventive medicine. Under the deal, Johnson & Johnson is spending 301.8 million euros ($440 million) for new shares of Crucell in a deal focused initially on developing a universal vaccine or treatment against influenza from Crucell's genetically engineered antibody technology.

Rafael Furcal tapped his knuckles on the armrest of his chair. "I can say that the only games I was forced to sit out this season had nothing to do with my back," he said. "I had an extremely complicated surgery. It wasn't easy to come back." Looking off into the distance, Furcal recalled his off-season workout program. He talked about the two rounds of special exercises he does every day to prevent a reoccurrence of the back problems that haunted him last season -- the first round, shortly after showing up at the ballpark; the second, after batting practice.

Doctors recommend against eating more than 2,300 milligrams of sodium a day. Order a Denny's double cheeseburger and you'll consume 3,880 milligrams in one sitting, almost double the suggested daily allowance of salt. Denny's meals "are dangerously high in sodium," according to a lawsuit filed Thursday by a New Jersey man with the support of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit group active in nutrition and food safety issues.

Los Angeles has one of the highest diabetes-related amputation rates in the country. Yet vascular surgeon Dr. George Andros can't seem to draw enough attention to the problem, which has skyrocketed not just here but nationally. "It's not sexy," he acknowledges. "Who cares about diabetic feet? It has no sizzle." Over the last 15 years, the U.S. rate of foot amputations from complications of diabetes has soared, approaching 100,000 annually, according to studies and government statistics.

The Senate on Wednesday approved a $48-billion program to treat and prevent AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, tripling the amount set aside in landmark legislation first passed five years ago. The legislation, approved 80 to 16, came after an impassioned debate that had stalled for weeks over objections by conservatives about the bill's cost, the role of abstinence education and control over how money is spent.

A recommendation from an influential doctors group that some children as young as 8 be aggressively treated with cholesterol-lowering drugs has triggered debate over whether there is enough scientific evidence to justify such a move. Statins, already among the most widely prescribed drugs, have been shown to lower the risk of heart disease in certain adults. But there are no comparable long-term studies for children. "We don't know the risks and the benefits," said Dr. Beatrice A.

The rapid rise in preventable chronic diseases -- such as obesity and heart disease -- over the last 20 years is hurting U.S. economic productivity, escalating treatment costs and causing unnecessary suffering, a new report says. That's the bad news. The good news, according to the report by the Santa Monica-based Milken Institute, is that the trend can be turned around with healthy doses of prevention and early detection.

ASPIRIN, a miracle drug packed into a tiny white pill, has had its dosage dictated by a century-old manufacturing process. Now researchers have studied the standard doses that 50 million American adults take daily to prevent cardiovascular disease. And they've found that less is better. Most people who take daily aspirin to prevent heart disease take either 81 milligrams, a standard baby aspirin, or 325 milligrams, a standard adult pill.

The notion that it's in society's best interest to help people avoid diabetes and its debilitating, costly complications is muddied by America's fragmented healthcare system. From the point of view of a health insurance industry bean counter, the business case for diabetes management is weak. Understanding why requires putting some statistics together. There's no doubt that, without better efforts at preventing and controlling diabetes, medical costs will soar.