News briefs

Harvey named to Friends of Science in Medicine board

Associate Professor Ken Harvey, from Monash University’s School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, has been appointed to the executive of Friends of Science in Medicine (FSM). He has been an influential member of the Commonwealth Pharmaceutical Health and Rational Use of Medicines Committee and most recently served on the Federal Government’s Natural Therapies Review Committee, which found no evidence for the effectiveness of any of the 18 common taxpayer-supported alternative treatments reviewed. Dr Harvey was a member of the expert group that drafted the World Health Organization’s Ethical Criteria for Medicinal Drug Promotion. FSM was established in 2011 and is supported by almost 1200 leading Australian scientists and clinicians. “No one has done more to protect consumers from the unethical marketing of prescription and ‘alternative’ medicines in our country,” said FSM president, Professor John Dwyer, AO.

Anatomy bestseller from 1613 published online

Columbia University in New York has digitised the 1661 translation of an anatomy “flapbook”, first published in 1613, and which remained a bestseller for 150 years. Catoptrum Microcosmicum, originally in Latin, “explains the human body, using movable flaps to take people down through successive layers”, reports Gizmodo. “The first layer was the person delicately draped in a way that preserved their modesty. The layer of drapery came off first. The book features a female figure and a male figure, both shown from the front and the back. Each figure is drawn with one foot standing on a skull.” Also featured is a pregnant female torso, which Gizmodo described as “the creepiest experience imaginable” and includes a “crotch-demon”. Available online at https://archive.org/details/ldpd_11497246_000.

Chromium in the spotlight

Gizmodo reports that University of New South Wales and University of Sydney researchers have found that popular chromium supplements are partially converted into a carcinogenic form when they enter cells. The National Health and Medical Research Council recommends 25–35 micrograms of chromium daily as the adequate adult intake. A maximum of 200 micrograms per day is considered safe by the US National Academy of Sciences. Over-the-counter supplement tablets, available in Australia and most commonly used for weight management, body building and type 2 diabetes, have been found to contain up to 500 micrograms each. The research, originally published in the chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie, was conducted on animal fat cells, which were x-rayed to allow scientists to observe the behaviour of chromium in the cell. The researchers say more study is needed to conclusively say whether the supplements significantly alter cancer risk.

Zika joins list of mosquito-borne nasties

A rare mosquito-borne virus called Zika is spreading from its African home through Asia and the Americas, with the United States Centers for Disease Control issuing its first travel advisory for the disease, for travellers through Puerto Rico, Wired reports. “In Brazil, the number of infants born with shrunken, malformed brains has gone up by a factor of 10 since Zika entered the country, and scientists there are trying to establish a causal link to the virus.” Closely related to dengue fever and yellow fever, Zika is hard to detect because “the classic test for Zika — checking a person’s blood for antibodies that bind to the Zika virus — spikes a false positive when it sees antibodies for those other two diseases”. Complicating the issue is that Zika also appears to be spread through sexual contact.