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Tuesday, 25 April 2006 00:00

Health Highlights: April 25, 2006

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Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of HealthDay:

Lack of Milk During Pregnancy Leads to Smaller Babies: Study

Pregnant women who don’t drink enough milk — and therefore don’t get enough vitamin D — are more likely to give birth to smaller babies, says a study by researchers at McGill University and the University of Calgary, Canada.

The study of about 300 pregnant women, ages 19 to 45, found that those who drank less than 250 milliliters of milk a day (about a glass) delivered smaller babies than women who drank more milk, CTV news reported.

The findings were published Tuesday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Smaller babies have higher rates of obesity, hypertension and diabetes as they age, say medical experts.

Vitamin D, which promotes bone and organ growth, is made naturally through skin exposure to sunlight. However, pregnant women are often told to avoid sun exposure due to chloasma, a blotchy skin condition that sunlight can make worse or permanent, CTV news reported.

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Vatican Still Studying Condom Issue

While companies the Vatican is conducting a study on whether it can condone the use of condoms by married couples in order to fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic, officials said Tuesday that there is no impending pronouncement.

Last weekend, an Italian newspaper reported that Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, head of the Vatican’s office for health care, said his office would soon release a document on married couples, condoms and HIV/AIDS, the Associated Press reported.

However, Barragan said Tuesday that his office was merely studying the issue at the request of the pope.

“We are conducting a very profound scientific, technical and moral study” that will be presented to the pope, he told Vatican Radio.

In recent years, the Vatican has come under increasing criticism for its refusal to approve the use of condoms by married couples to prevent the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

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Malaria Experts Criticize World Bank

The World Bank faked data, approved useless treatments and broke promises about providing funding to combat malaria, say a dozen experts who signed an opinion piece published online Tuesday in The Lancet medical journal.

The article accuses the World Bank of falsifying data to indicate that progress was being made against malaria and of approving an obsolete drug called chloroquine for anti-malaria programs in India, the Associated Press reported.

In addition, the experts charged that the World Bank failed to honor a 2000 pledge of between $300 million and $500 million in loans (providing only between $100 million and $150 million) to fight malaria in Africa.

“The bank failed to lend Africa the funds for malaria control that it said it would, and rather than admit this with candor, the bank concealed the fact by using untransparent and contradictory accounting,” Amir Attaran, a lawyer at the Institute of Population Health at the University of Ottawa, Canada, wrote in the article.

The World Bank denied the charges but did say it would try harder to direct more money to anti-malaria programs, the AP reported.

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Many Americans Know Little About Mental Illness: Survey

Many Americans (44 percent) know little about the symptoms, causes and treatments for mental illnesses, but 84 percent agree that they would benefit from knowing more about the warning signs of such disorders, says a survey released Tuesday by the American Psychiatric Association (APA).

“The consequences of this gap in knowledge are quite serious,” Dr. Car