Topic: General Health

Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have developed an experimental vaccine that reduces stillbirths among rodents born to mothers infected with cytomegalovirus (CMV) — a common virus that can also cause mental retardation and hearing loss in newborn children who were infected in early fetal life.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today directed the manufacturers of all drug products approved for the treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) to develop Patient Medication Guides to alert patients to possible cardiovascular risks and risks of adverse psychiatric symptoms associated with the medicines, and to advise them of precautions that can be taken.

The rate of fetal deaths, also known as stillbirths, occurring at 20 weeks of gestation or more declined substantially between 1990 and 2003, according to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Although fetal mortality rates declined among all racial and ethnic groups from 1990-2003, the fetal mortality rate for non-Hispanic black women was more than double that of non-Hispanic white women (11.56 per 1,000 vs. 4.94 per 1,000).