60 SECONDS

Volcanic ozone wipeout

Eruptions in Siberia devastated Earth’s

ozone layer 251 million years ago,

coinciding with the largest mass

extinction in history, according to

models of atmospheric chemistry.

The models suggest ozone-destroying

halogen gases were released as lava

reacted with coal and salt deposits

(Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, DOI: 10.1098/rsta.2007.2046).

Drugs clash

Nigeria has filed a $7 billion lawsuit

against US pharmaceuticals giant Pfizer

over trials conducted in 1996 of an

antibiotic against meningitis, claiming

it harmed Nigerian children. The case

follows several recent challenges to Big

Pharma from developing countries.

Multiple culprits

The same genes may be responsible for

several common diseases, according to

a genome-wide study of such links.

Researchers have identified four

chromosome regions as carrying genes

that may predispose people to type 1

diabetes and Crohn’s disease, as well as

a single gene called PTPN2 that is

implicated in both diseases. Such

multi-purpose genetic markers could

help doctors screen for several disease

risks at once (Nature, vol 447, p 661).

Smash-up on hold

The start-up of the Large Hadron

Collider is being delayed until early

2008. The world’s largest particle

collider, being built at the CERN facility

near Geneva, Switzerland, was due

to begin operations in November.

According to CERN, the delay is due to

an accumulation of small setbacks.

Lumbering lizard

Tyrannosaurus rex could run at up to

40 kilometres per hour, but changing

direction would have taken a

ponderous 2 seconds because of the

creature’s long tail, according to

biomechanical calculations published

in the Journal of Theoretical Biology. An adult T. rex would typically have

weighed around 8 tonnes.

shared by the Intergovernmental

Panel on Climate Change to

calculate the effects of exploding

100 Hiroshima-sized bombs

over major cities – roughly

equivalent to an all-out nuclear

war between India and Pakistan

(Atmospheric Chemistry and

Physics, vol 7, p 2003).

They found that the blasts

would loft up to 5 million tonnes

of black carbon soot into the

atmosphere, lowering global

temperatures by 1.4 °C. Growing

seasons in the middle latitudes

would be shortened and in some

cases fail entirely. “By explaining

the consequences to the world, we

hope nothing like this will ever

happen,” says Robock.

“RIGHT across the board America

was behind on so many fronts in

terms of attitudes, awareness

and what they are fundamentally

doing.” So says Australian

environmentalist Jon Dee, who

has completed a global survey

into attitudes to the environment

for the first annual World

Environment Review, published

on Tuesday.

While emerging economies

are often accused of resisting the

need to tackle climate change, the

survey, carried out with the Seattle-

based research group Global

Market Insite, suggests otherwise.

People in India and China are

more willing than citizens of

industrialised nations to place

restrictions on carbon emissions

from nations like their own.

Indians cared most about

carbon emissions, with 55 per cent

describing themselves as “very

concerned”; just 32 per cent of

Britons felt the same way. Dee

says this flies in the face of calls

for developing countries to wake

up to the threat of climate change.

The survey polled opinions

from 14,000 people in 14

countries to gather solid data on

how people feel about climate

change, he adds. Almost 90 per

cent of those surveyed thought

governments should do more to

tackle the issue.

WHEN a well-respected doctor

raises concerns about the side

effects of an important medicine,

you’d expect drug safety

officials to investigate. Instead, a

spokesman for the US Food and

Drug Administration is alleged to

have chosen a different strategy:

smearing the doctor in question.

Steve Nissen, chair of

cardiovascular medicine at

the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio,

investigated the safety of the

diabetes drug Avandia, in a study

published in The New England

Journal of Medicine this March.

Avandia is approved by the

FDA, but Nissen found that it

significantly increased the risk

of heart attack. It was the latest

blow to the FDA, which has been

repeatedly criticised for failing to

spot dangerous side effects.

According to ABC News, FDA

spokesman Douglas Arbesfeld

emailed health reporters drawing

attention to a blog that accuses

Nissen of focusing his criticism

on drug manufacturers that do

not run trials at the Cleveland

Clinic – a charge Nissen rejects.

The FDA declined to comment.

“The FDA has been repeatedly criticised for failing to spot dangerous side effects”

He caused an international health scare

by flying to his wedding in Greece and

later to Canada while infected with

extremely drug-resistant (XDR)

tuberculosis. Now Andrew Speaker,

a 31-year-old American, says his doctors

told him “repeatedly” that he was not

contagious – even to his new wife.

“I really believed I wasn’t putting

people at risk because that was what I

was told,” Speaker told ABC News.

He is smear-negative, meaning no

bacilli are visible in his sputum. Such

people can transmit TB, but rarely do

if they are symptom-free, like Speaker.

“Someone not coughing, with a low

burden of bacteria, should have a low

index of contagion,” says Marcel Behr of

McGill University in Montreal, Canada, but

this has never been directly measured.

Speaker says the US Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in

Atlanta, Georgia, knew of his wedding

plans: ironically, the bride’s father

is a CDC TB researcher. Days after the

wedding, when the CDC discovered that

Speaker’s TB was XDR, staff called him

on honeymoon in Rome and told him

they were “not comfortable” with him

taking commercial flights. Speaker had

already been told he would die without

specialist treatment in Denver, Colorado,

but the CDC had banned him from US

flights, so he flew to Canada and drove

to Denver instead. He was in hospital

there as New Scientist went to press.

The CDC said: “On the basis of the

patient’s clinical and laboratory status…

this patient was considered potentially

infectious at the time of his airline travel.”

DON’T CATCH ME IF YOU CAN

GEOR

GE K

OCHA

NIEC

/ROC

KY M

OUNT

AINS

NEW

S/PO

LARI

S/EY

EVIN

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–No one dreams of a honeymoon in hospital–

Green feelings

Critic smeared

www.newscientist.com 9 June 2007 | NewScientist | 7

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