Health Report

THE GOOD NEWS

-- Most condoms today are made of latex, which breaks only 2% of the time but disintegrates when used with oil-based lubricants. London International Group, whose American subsidiary is Schmid Laboratories, announced the development of a polyurethane prophylactic that it claims is not only impervious to oils but also thinner than latex and just as strong. The product should be on the market by next year.

-- Some worry about contraception, others about conception. Until recently, in vitro fertilization has been useful mostly for women's reproductive & complications, but a respected Belgian researcher has developed a technique that should help men with low sperm counts. His method of injecting a single sperm into the egg, he says, has a 65% fertilization rate.

THE BAD NEWS

-- Doctors have been debating the question of sex bias in treatment for several years. Until now the issue of most concern was whether men receive more aggressive treatment for heart disease than women do. Now an extensive study suggests that women who see male doctors are only half as likely to be given Pap smears for cervical cancer and are 40% less likely to receive mammograms than those with female physicians.

-- The rash of deaths on the Navajo Indian reservation last spring was caused by dust carrying the urine or saliva of mice infected with the hantavirus. Researchers thought the outbreak might be limited, but have now identified hantavirus deaths in California and Louisiana, and believe the virus may have been the cause of many previously misdiagnosed deaths.

Sources -- GOOD: Associated Press, New England Journal of Medicine; BAD: New York Times