Medicine: Capsules, Mar. 5, 1956

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¶ When Eileen Sue Van Lopik, 2, of Grand Rapids was found last November to have acute leukemia, doctors examined her identical twin Kathleen Jo, were relieved that she seemed to have no sign of the invariably fatal disease. Last week, as the parents were told that there was no chance for Eileen Sue, they learned the worst: Kathleen Jo has leukemia. Since there is no known hereditary factor in the disease, the Van Lopiks were victims of an estimated million-to-one mischance. This week Eileen Sue died.

¶ Japanese drugstores sell virtually nothing but patent medicines, while doctors themselves dispense nearly all prescriptions—at a handsome profit. Angered by a government proposal to let patients have prescriptions filled anywhere they choose, the Japan Medical Association last week voted to refuse treatment to patients under the state insurance plan. The government decided to ignore the doctors' lobby, go ahead and break their prescription monopoly.

¶ Food & Drug Administration officials have found traces of penicillin in 3% to 11½% of milk samples tested at random across the U.S. Source: milk taken from cows too soon after treatment for udder inflammation. These tiny amounts are not dangerous to the vast majority of people, but could prove fatal to the few who are "exquisitely sensitive" to penicillin. Farmers, says the FDA, must not sell milk produced the first three days after treatment ends.

¶ The World Health Organization issued a jubilant report: in 36 countries on six continents diphtheria is now "a vanishing disease, and no longer a public health problem." Reason: spreading use of anti-diphtheria shots. Heaviest toll is now among children about four years old.

¶ Suntan oils may cause inflammation at the very time they are protecting the skin against sunburn, warned Dermatologist Wiley M. Sams of Miami. Some ingredients can filter out part of the ultraviolet rays, but simultaneously sensitize the skin to other rays.