Government lists formaldehyde as cancer causer (AP)

WASHINGTON � The strong-smelling chemical formaldehyde causes cancer, while styrene, a second industrial chemical that's used worldwide in the manufacture of fiberglass and food containers, may cause cancer, the National Institutes of Health says.

The NIH said Friday that people with higher measures of exposure to formaldehyde are at increased risk for certain types of rare cancers, including those affecting the upper part of the throat behind the nose.

The chemical is widely used to make resins for household items, including paper product coatings, plastics and textile finishes. It also is commonly used as a preservative in medical laboratories, mortuaries and consumer products including some hair straightening products.

The government says styrene is a component of tobacco smoke, and NIH says the greatest exposure to the chemical is through cigarette smoking.

The two chemicals were among eight added to the government's list submitted to Congress of chemicals and biological agents that may put people at increased risk of for cancer.

Also on the list as a known carcinogen is a botanical agent called aristolochic acids, shown to cause high rates of bladder or upper urinary tract cancer in people with kidney or renal disease.

A warning issued a decade ago by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration advised consumers to discontinue using botanical products containing aristolochic acids. They are still available on the Internet and abroad and may be a contaminant in herbal products for treating symptoms for arthritis, gout, and inflammation.

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Online:

NIH: http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/go/roc12

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Germany: outbreak waning, but more deaths possible (AP)

HAMBURG, Germany � Germany's health minister says he's hopeful that the worst of an E. coli outbreak blamed on sprouts is over � but he is warning that the number of deaths, now at 33, may still increase.

Minister Daniel Bahr's comments came after health officials announced on Friday that they had traced the outbreak to sprouts from a farm in northern Germany. They also lifted a warning against eating cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce, which initially had been suspected as possible culprits.

The E. coli outbreak, the world's deadliest, has sickened nearly 3,100 people � most of them in Germany � and prompted many in Europe to shun vegetables over recent weeks.

"The (E. coli) wave is gradually abating � there is reason to hope the worst is now over," Bahr was quoted Saturday as telling the Bild am Sonntag newspaper. He added that a major new flare-up is "very unlikely."

However, "further deaths are not ruled out, as painful as that is," he added.

In Hamburg, one of the areas worst hit by the outbreak, customers at the city's Wandsbek market were back to buying cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce on Saturday.

With the end of the warning, "now they are coming back to the markets," said farmer Wolfgang Sannmann, who was selling vegetables and fruit. "And the consumer can buy again what he wants and what his appetite tells him."

Still, some customers remained wary despite officials' assurances that they had pinned down the source.

"I am still very cautious, because in the first place they said it's the cucumbers, and everyone stopped eating them, and now it's the sprouts," said real-estate agent Jessica Hemblen, 27. "I'm not sure whether this is it, or whether it's not going to be something different again."

"It can occur everywhere, and other things can come up too, so I am trying to get a good mixture (of vegetables) to lower the risk," said retiree Edith Karg.

Health officials say they tracked the bacteria's path from hospital patients struggling with diarrhea and kidney failure, to restaurants where they had dined, to specific meals and ingredients they ate, and finally back to a single farm.

Also on Friday, officials in Germany's North Rhine-Westphalia state said tests had confirmed the deadly E. coli strain in a bag of sprouts from the farm that was in the garbage of a family near Cologne, two of whose members had been sickened.

There are more questions to answer, including what contaminated the sprouts in the first place � perhaps tainted seeds or water, or nearby animals.

Interviews with thousands of patients, mostly women ages 20 to 50 with healthy lifestyles, led investigators to conclude initially that salads could be the problem. That resulting in the warning to avoid cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce, which caused major losses for European farmers.

"Of course I have understanding for the companies that have been left sitting on their cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuces," said Bahr, the health minister.

"But I say that protecting health is the priority; if, thanks to the warning, a single human life was not endangered, that is in everyone's interest."

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Bill Gates in China push against secondhand smoke (AP)

BEIJING � Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates is visiting China to raise awareness of the dangers of secondhand smoke.

Gates appeared at a news conference in Beijing on Saturday alongside Chinese Internet executive Robin Li and Vice Health Minister Huang Jiefu to encourage nonsmokers to stand up for their right to a smoke-free environment.

According to government statistics, smoking is linked to the deaths of at least 1 million people in China every year, making it one of the greatest health threats the country faces. Nearly 30 percent of adults in China smoke � about 300 million people, a number roughly equal to the entire U.S. population.

The risks of secondhand smoke include increased asthma attacks, ear and respiratory infections, and cancer.

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Like sprouts? Experts say cook first to be safe (AP)

LONDON � Salad eaters, beware. Experts say it's little surprise that sprouts are behind the world's deadliest E. coli outbreak.

Sprouts need warm and humid conditions to grow � precisely the same conditions required by bugs like E. coli and salmonella to thrive. And raw sprouts have been blamed before in food poisoning outbreaks, in the U.S. and a large outbreak in Japan in 1996.

German officials said Friday that sprouts caused the deadly outbreak there, although they don't know which kind. The organic farm linked to the outbreak grew a wide variety, including alfalfa, onion and radish.

Sprouts are grown in water from seeds, which are rinsed daily. They can be grown from numerous kinds of vegetables and are often eaten raw in salads and sandwiches.

Officials in Germany say they're not yet sure whether the sprout seeds were infected or whether the sprouts got contaminated by dirty water. Public health agencies have long been concerned about the risks of bacterial contamination of water used to produce sprouts.

E. coli can stick to the surface of sprout seeds.

"They can lay dormant on the seeds for months," said Stephen Smith, a microbiologist at Trinity College in Dublin.

Unfortunately for sprout-eaters, the germs are then inside the sprout as well as outside.

At that point, "washing has no effect," Smith said.

The European Food Safety Authority doesn't recommend avoiding certain foods, but advises consumers to take basic precautions, like washing all fruits and vegetables with clean water and peeling or cooking them when possible.

For now, German authorities are recommending people avoid all sprouts.

In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration recommends children, the elderly, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems avoid eating any kind of raw sprouts. The agency also recommends cooking sprouts thoroughly to reduce the risk of illness.

Because most sprouts � including alfalfa, bean, and mung � are eaten raw, they're not exposed to temperatures high enough to kill bacteria.

But experts say it's not necessary to ditch sprouts entirely because they are a good source of protein and vitamins.

"It's not that all sprouts are bad," Smith said. "But if you're desperate to eat sprouts and you want to be safe, try stir-frying them first."

Bob Sanderson, president of the U.S.-based International Sprout Growers Association, said the industry is working to update food safety guidelines issued by the FDA more than a decade ago. Sanderson's group � which represents 45 producers around the world � named June "Sprout Health and Wellness Month."

"In a way, it is kind of international sprout month," he said. "Just maybe not in the way we hoped."

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David Rising in Berlin and J.M. Hirsch in Concord, N.H., contributed to this report.

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Dutch find different E. coli, pull beet sprouts (AP)

AMSTERDAM � Dutch authorities recalled red beet sprouts from three countries Thursday after samples were found to be contaminated with a strain of E. coli bacteria that was apparently less dangerous than the one causing Europe's deadly E. coli crisis.

German health officials, meanwhile, reported that three more people died of the ailment Thursday, raising the toll to 29 in less than six weeks.

The Dutch Food Safety Authority said laboratories were still trying to identify the Dutch strain of E. coli, but said there have been no immediate reports of serious illness from it.

Still, the agency said it was definitely not the same E. coli strain that killed 29 people, sickened 2,900 others and left hundreds with serious complications, most of them in Germany. The cause of that outbreak has so far eluded German investigators.

Only one Dutch grower, a company called Hamu, was found with contaminated beets, and other produce grown on its farms were cleared of suspicion, said Esther Filon, a spokeswoman for the Dutch regulation agency.

"It's not the same as in Germany. You can become ill, but as far as we know at this moment, it is not lethal," she told The Associated Press.

She said the authorities were trying to trace all shipments from the grower.

The agency said Hamu, based in the town of Kerkdriel, 44 miles (70 kilometers) southeast of Amsterdam, had exported beet sprouts to Belgium as well as selling them on the Dutch and German markets.

There are hundreds of E. coli bacteria strains in nature, but only a few are deadly to humans and the bacteria is more commonly known as a source of food poisoning or severe stomach problems.

People naturally carry several harmless E. coli strains in their intestines and the bacteria is also widely found in cows, sheep and other mammals. Strains which are harmless to animals can sometimes be lethal for humans. Experts worry about E. coli's constant evolution, which may result in dangerous mutations for humans.

The European Union informed the Netherlands late Wednesday that contaminated beet sprouts had been found in Germany, and tests in the Netherlands confirmed it.

Harald Wychel of the National Institute for Public Health said authorities are still investigating whether anyone has fallen ill from the Dutch strain.

In Berlin, the Robert Koch Institute said the rate of new illnesses was declining in the deadly E. coli outbreak. It said 2,808 people have been sickened in Germany, 722 of whom are suffering from a serious complication that can cause kidney failure. But it was not clear whether the epidemic was waning, or people were just successfully shunning fruit and vegetables.

The World Health Organization says 97 others have fallen sick in 12 other European countries, as well as three in the United States.

Germany's Lower Saxony state health ministry said two more people died after being infected � a 20-year-old woman and an 68-year-old man.

At least five people were hospitalized following a family gathering for a 70th birthday late last month south of Hannover, and investigators were probing the catering firm for possible leads to the outbreak's source, the state ministry said.

European Union farmers say they have been losing up to euro417 million ($611 million) a week as ripe produce rots in fields and warehouses. The EU pledged Wednesday it would offer farmers compensation of up to euro210 million ($306 million) for the E. coli losses.

Russia and Saudi Arabia have issued a blanket ban on vegetable imports from the European Union.

Spanish farmers have been among the hardest hit, after authorities in Hamburg issued a warning that Spanish cucumbers could be the source of the outbreak. Further tests showed that while the Spanish vegetables did carry E. coli, it was not the strain behind the outbreak.

Spain's Secretary of State for European Affairs, Diego Lopez Garrido, said the compensation being offered by the EU is not enough and blasted the Russian ban on all EU vegetables as "inappropriate." Russia is a huge market for EU produce.

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David Rising and Juergen Baetz in Berlin and Maria Cheng in London contributed to this report

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Study finds why smokers gain weight when they quit (AP)

WASHINGTON � Scientists say they've finally discovered why smokers tend to gain some weight when they kick the habit.

It turns out that nicotine can rev up brain cells that normally signal people to stop eating when they're full, researchers report in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

The weight connection isn't huge: On average, quitters gain less than 10 pounds. Still, it's a worry that many smokers cite when asked why they don't try to quit. Now the question is whether the discovery might lead to better treatments to help them quit without worrying about weight.

Yale University associate research scientist Yann Mineur stumbled onto the connection while studying a nicotine-related substance in mice � and the animals suddenly started eating less.

Nicotine hooks onto a variety of receptors, or docking sites, on the surface of cells. That's how it triggers addiction in one part of the brain.

But when it comes to weight, the Yale research found that both nicotine and the related drug cytisine were activating a different receptor than the one involved in addiction. This one is located on a small set of neurons in the hypothalamus, a region that regulates appetite.

When they gave nicotine to mice without that cellular pathway, it didn't help them lose weight like it did normal mice.

Smoking causes cancer, heart attacks and a host of other ailments so worry about modest weight gain shouldn't deter someone from quitting. But smokers who do have that concern should try nicotine-based smoking-cessation treatments, said study senior author Marina Picciotto, a Yale professor of psychiatry and neurobiology.

The other drug used in the mouse experiments, cytisine, is sold in Eastern Europe for smoking cessation but not in the U.S., and she'd like to see if there's data on the weight of smokers abroad who've used it.

Developing a drug to target only these specific receptors would be difficult, she cautions, because they're also involved in the body's stress responses in ways that could lead to such side effects as high blood pressure.

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