Your Health

Good News
BONUS SHOT Meningitis vaccinations are agonizing for babies, but they pack an unexpected bonus--fewer ear infections. A Finnish study shows that meningitis vaccines ward off 6% of all ear infections. That may not sound like much, but U.S. children under five come down with 25 million ear infections each year, and the vaccine could prevent 1.5 million of them. That would reduce antibiotic use among kids--and wear and tear on parents.

IN VITRO VERITAS In vitro fertilization can be a harrowing experience. To raise the likelihood of getting a healthy embryo, women inject themselves daily with powerful medication that stimulates the ovaries to produce extra eggs. Now British researchers have experimented with drug-free IVF, using just the single ovum a woman naturally produces each month. After an average of four tries, a woman's chances of having a baby were about 35%--only slightly lower than her odds in many IVF programs.

Bad News
STRIKEOUT Doctors had hoped that hormone- replacement therapy--because it increases the elasticity of blood vessels--would help prevent strokes. Not so. The first clinical trial to look at strokes and HRT shows no increase or decrease--at least in postmenopausal women with heart disease. This is the second recent setback for hormone treatments. Three years ago, doctors learned that HRT may not protect against heart disease either.

AIDS UPDATE Young gay men in America have long been at high risk for AIDS, but the results of a new survey stunned health officials. Fully 30% of gay black men from the ages of 23 to 29 are now infected with HIV, and nearly half of all gay men in their 20s report that they engage in unprotected anal sex. Either the safe-sex messages aren't getting through or new AIDS treatments have made young men tragically complacent.

Sources: Good News--New England Journal of Medicine (2/8/01), Human Reproduction (1/31/01); Bad News--Circulation (2/6/01), CDC