Health

"If war again comes to Iraq, depleted uranium munitions will be a mainstay of the American arsenal. For years, the Pentagon has discounted reports that the shells and bullets, made of solid nuclear-waste byproduct and used for the first time on a large scale in the Iraq war, bore calamity. ... 'There just isn't any scientific foundation to draw a connection between exposure and the incidents of leukemia, other cancers or birth defects,' said Michael Kilpatrick, deputy director of deployment health support at the Pentagon. ...

"A public-relations firm is dealing with a public-relations nightmare
after unintentionally e-mailing journalists and others documents about
one of its clients, Seattle-based Cell Therapeutics.
The mass e-mail from Shepardson Stern + Kaminsky on Wednesday revealed
the candid views of Cell Therapeutics managers and outside analysts on
the strengths and weaknesses of the biotechnology company. SS+K asserts

"It's no easy job to save market share for expensive antihypertensive drugs when headlines read 'When Cheaper Is Also Better,'" writes Jeanne Lenzer. A major new study shows that the expensive drugs used to treat hypertension "were no better than a diuretic.

"Drug companies and doctors are
fighting a Bush administration plan to restrict gifts and
other rewards that pharmaceutical manufacturers give
doctors and insurers to encourage the prescribing of
particular drugs. ... In contending that the proposed federal code of conduct
would require radical changes, those opposing the change
discuss their tactics with unusual candor and describe
marketing practices that have long been shrouded in
secrecy. Drug makers acknowledged, for example, that they routinely