Chemical makers say BPA no longer used in bottles (AP)

WASHINGTON � Makers of the controversial chemical bisphenol-A have asked federal regulators to phase out rules that allow its use in baby bottles and sippy cups, saying those products haven't contained the plastic-hardening ingredient for two years.

The unusual request from the American Chemistry Council may help quash years of negative publicity from consumer groups and head off tougher laws that would ban the chemical from other types of packaging because of health worries.

For now, the industry says concerns over bottles and spill-proof cups are unnecessary.

"All the evidence we have is that those products have been off the market for several years," said Steven Hentges, the American Chemistry Council's director for BPA issues. "We're trying to bring clarity and certainty that BPA isn't used in baby bottles and sippy cups today, and it won't be in the future."

BPA is found in hundreds of plastic items from water bottles to CDs to dental sealants. Some researchers are convinced that ingesting the chemical can interfere with development of the reproductive and nervous systems and possibly promote cancer.

Consumer health groups hailed the move as a "win for moms and dads" but pressed for removing BPA from more products.

"The writing is on the wall for BPA," said Mike Schade of the Center for Health, Environment and Justice. "We hope to see a major transition away from BPA in canned food in years to come."

The chemical industry's petition points out that the six leading makers of baby bottles stopped using BPA in 2009. And none of the 13 major BPA producers, which make 97 percent of the global supply, sells the chemical to bottle makers.

The group represents BPA producers including Dow Chemical Co., Bayer and Momentive. The companies maintain that BPA is safe and the decision to petition the FDA was not influenced by science.

The FDA regulates chemicals used in food packaging. It is illegal for companies to use substances not covered by FDA rules.

Agency spokesman Douglas Karas said the industry information is "consistent" with its own research, suggesting regulators would approve the request. The FDA typically takes comments on petitions for 60 days before making a decision.

The industry move also appears designed to head off state-level efforts to ban BPA across the U.S. On Wednesday, California became the 11th state to pass a law banning bisphenol from baby drink containers. Connecticut, Maryland, Minnesota, New York and a half-dozen other states have passed similar laws in the past two years.

"This move eliminates the need for state and federal governments to spend further time and effort on a matter that has no practical outcome," the group said in a statement.

Consumers Union, a nonprofit advocacy group, pointed out that "the industry collectively spent millions of dollars over the last five years" lobbying against the BPA state bans.

"The chemical industry's action doesn't go far enough. They need to get on board with a national ban on BPA in all food and beverage containers," said Ami Gadhia, the group's senior counsel.

Legislation introduced by Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and other federal lawmakers would ban BPA nationwide in all canned food, water bottles and food containers. Those products are not addressed in the industry's petition.

The vast majority of canned goods in the U.S. are sealed with resin that contains BPA to prevent contamination and spoiling. Canned food manufacturers have used the chemicals since the 1950s. The practice is approved by the FDA.

But some manufacturers have responded to concerns by switching to alternatives. Heinz uses BPA-free coatings for its Nurture baby formula cans, and ConAgra and General Mills have switched to alternative sealants for some canned tomatoes.

The chemical industry says BPA is the safest, most effective sealant.

The federal government has been grappling with the safety of BPA for nearly three years. The FDA revised its opinion on BPA in 2010 saying there is "some concern" about the chemical's impact on the brain and reproductive system of infants, babies and young children. Previously the agency said the trace amounts of BPA that leach out of food containers are not dangerous.

The FDA said dozens of animal studies linking the chemical to tumors and abnormal growth are not applicable to humans. The government is spending $30 million to study the chemical's effect on people.

About 90 percent of Americans have traces of bisphenol in their urine.

While older children and adults quickly eliminate the chemical through their kidneys, newborns and infants can retain it for much longer. Scientists pushing for a ban on the chemical argue that BPA mimics the effects of the hormone estrogen, interfering with growth.

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FDA approves first diabetes-cholesterol combo pill (AP)

WASHINGTON � The Food and Drug Administration has approved a Merck drug as the first combination pill for patients with diabetes who also have high cholesterol.

Patients with both diabetes and high cholesterol are at increased risk for heart disease, stroke, kidney disease and other chronic conditions.

The drug Juvisync combines Merck's diabetes pill Januvia with the popular cholesterol drug Zocor.

The American Diabetes Association recommends all people with diabetes over 40 take a cholesterol-lowering drug, known as a statin. But Merck scientists say many as 4 million diabetes patients in the U.S. are not following that recommendation.

About 20 million people in the U.S. have type 2 diabetes, which prevents them from properly breaking down carbohydrates. Patients with the condition are at a higher risk of a number of complications.

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Panel advises against prostate cancer screening (AP)

WASHINGTON � Those PSA blood tests that check for prostate cancer do more harm than good and healthy men should no longer receive them as part of routine cancer screening, a government panel is recommending.

The recommendation by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, being made public on Friday, will not be a surprise to cancer specialists.

No major medical group recommends routine PSAs, and the government panel's guidelines had long advised men over 75 to forgo them. The new recommendation extends that do-not-screen advice to healthy men of all ages.

Yet, the vast majority of men over 50 have had at least one PSA blood test. The assumption is that finding cancer early is always a good thing.

Not so, said Dr. Virginia Moyer of the Baylor College of Medicine, who heads the task force.

"We have put a huge amount of time, effort and energy into PSA screening and that time, effort and energy, that passion, should be going into finding a better test instead of using a test that doesn't work," Moyer told The Associated Press late Thursday.

Too much PSA, or prostate-specific antigen, in the blood only sometimes signals prostate cancer is brewing. It also can mean a benign enlarged prostate or an infection. Worse, screening often detects small tumors that will prove too slow-growing to be deadly. And there's no sure way to tell in advance who needs aggressive therapy.

The task force analyzed all the previous research on this subject, including five major studies, to evaluate whether routine screening reduces deaths from prostate cancer. The conclusion: There's little if any mortality benefit.

But there is harm from routine screening: impotence, incontinence, infections, even death that can come from the biopsies, surgery and radiation, Moyer said.

One study estimated 2 of every 5 men whose prostate cancer was caught through a PSA test had tumors too slow-growing to ever be a threat.

Yet Moyer said 30 percent of men who are treated for PSA-discovered prostate cancer suffer significant side effects, sometimes death, from the resulting treatment.

About a third of men ages 40 to 60 have brewing prostate cancer but "the huge majority of them will never know it in their lifetime if they are not screened," she added.

The task force previously had considered the evidence for or against PSA screening inconclusive. The new recommendation says not to routinely screen. That recommendation is a draft that is open for public comment beginning next week.

"We have been long concerned, and it has been apparent for some years, that some supporters of prostate cancer screening have overstated, exaggerated and in some cases misled men about the evidence supporting its effectiveness," said Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society in a statement. "We need balanced, truthful information to be made widely available to physicians and patients when making important health decisions."

The society had not seen the new recommendation yet, but has long advised men to consider the pros and cons of PSA screening before deciding on their own.

Moyer said the recommendation only means that doctors shouldn't bring up the option for healthy men. If a man asks for a PSA test and wants it after being informed of the evidence, he should receive it, she said. Likewise, it's appropriate to use PSA tests to examine a man with possible prostate symptoms.

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Kids' ER concussion visits up 60 pct over decade (AP)

ATLANTA � Health officials say emergency room visits by children injured in sports and recreational activities rose 60 percent in the past decade. They said that's probably because parents and coaches are more careful about getting these head injuries treated.

Bicycling and football were the leading causes of brain injuries.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study of youths 19 and younger is based on a national survey of 66 hospital emergency departments. About 250,000 traumatic brain injury visits were reported in 2009, up from about 150,000 in 2001.

Experts think increased awareness in recent years about the dangers of concussion prompted the increase. Trips to the ER rose dramatically but hospitalizations did not, so more of the recent cases were milder injuries.

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Experts say cancer likely killed Steve Jobs (AP)

Steve Jobs managed to live more than seven years with a rare form of pancreatic cancer that grows more slowly than the common kind. But his need for a liver transplant two years ago was a bad sign that his troubles with the disease probably were not over.

The Apple founder long kept information on his illness behind a firewall, and no new details emerged immediately after his death.

However, medical experts unconnected with his care say Jobs most likely needed the transplant because his cancer came back or spread. They said his death could have been from cancer, the new liver not working, or complications from immune-suppressing medicines to prevent organ rejection.

A liver transplant can cure Jobs' type of cancer, but "if it were to come back, it's usually in one to two years," said Dr. Michael Pishvaian, a gastrointestinal cancer specialist at Georgetown University's Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Jobs declared he was cured after surgery in 2004 for an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor, a much more treatable form of pancreatic cancer than the more common form of the disease that killed actor Patrick Swayze two years ago.

But the Apple chief never revealed whether the cancer had spread to his lymph nodes or liver, or how extensive his surgery was. Many doctors speculated he had a Whipple procedure, in which part of the pancreas, part of the small intestine and in some cases part of the stomach are removed and the digestive system is reconstructed.

"It's a big operation" and patients can have digestive difficulties long afterward, said Dr. Steven Libutti, director of the Montefiore-Einstein Center for Cancer Care in the Bronx.

Several years later, Jobs was dramatically thinner and gaunt. In January 2009, he attributed those problems to a hormone imbalance and said there was a simple treatment for it. A few weeks later, he went on a medical leave and then had a liver transplant that was kept secret for two months.

Even then, Jobs would not say why the transplant was needed, though doctors said spread of his cancer to the liver was the likely explanation.

Usually transplants aren't done for people with cancer, but "there is some support for the idea that a liver transplant can be curative" for a neuroendocrine tumor as long as the cancer has not spread beyond the liver, Pishvaian said.

Average survival for people with neuroendocrine tumors that have spread is seven to eight years, and some patients have survived 20 to 30 years, said Dr. Martin Heslin, cancer surgery chief at Vanderbilt University.

It was not to be for Jobs.

In January, he announced his third and final leave of absence, and resigned in August.

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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at _http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Doctors say cancer likely killed Steve Jobs (AP)

Apple and the family of Steve Jobs are not saying what caused the death of the company's founder. However, medical experts not involved in his care say that the liver transplant he had two years ago was probably a sign that his cancer had returned.

Jobs declared he was cured in 2004 after surgery for a rare type of pancreatic cancer that grows more slowly and is more treatable than the more common type. Yet this type of cancer often returns or spreads, usually to the liver.

Jobs has been on a medical leave since early this year for medical problems he wouldn't discuss in detail. He resigned as Apple's chief in August.

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