People who take clozapine for schizophrenia tend to live longer than those who take other drugs for this disorder, researchers said this week. The results were surprising, the Associated Press reported. Clozapine usually is given only when other drugs have failed. That's because as many as 2% of people who take it lose their white blood cells. The study looked at death rates of 67,000 Finns with schizophrenia. Finns who took any drug for schizophrenia lived longer than those who did not use drug treatment. Since clozapine was associated with the lowest death rate, researchers suggested that the use of clozapine might be too restrictive. The study was published online by the journal Lancet.
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Swine Flu Vaccine May Be Delayed A swine flu vaccine may not be fully licensed until the end of the year, the World Health Organization said this week. That's because the virus is not growing fast enough in laboratories, the Associated Press (AP) said. This reduces time available for testing. But countries could use emergency measures to get the vaccines out faster. In other swine flu news, AP said obese people seem to get sicker from the infection. Also, researchers said the virus is able to infect cells deep in the lungs more easily than seasonal flu. McClatchy-Tribune Information Services wrote about that research.

Transplant Removed After Heart Heals Itself
An unusual transplant case shows that the heart sometimes can heal itself, doctors said this week. In 1995, baby Hannah Clark's heart was failing. Rather than do a transplant, doctors grafted a donor heart onto her heart. But the drugs she took to prevent rejection of the new organs later led to cancer. Doctors lowered the drug dose. Eventually, her body rejected the donor heart. But meanwhile her original heart had healed enough that it could work alone. More than three years ago, doctors removed the donor heart. This meant that Hannah no longer needed drugs to suppress her immune system. She was able to recover from cancer. Now she is 16 and doing well, doctors announced. The Associated Press wrote about the news conference. Hannah's story also was published in the journal Lancet.

Some Colo. Patients Exposed to Hepatitis C
As many as 6,000 patients are being tested to see if they got hepatitis C from dirty needles at a Denver medical center. Ten cases already have been linked with the center. Police said Kristen Diane Parker told them how it happened. Parker was a technician at the Rose Medical Center until April. Her taped interview was played in court, the Associated Press reported this week. On the tape, Parker said she stole syringes filled with Fentanyl, a narcotic, for her own use. She said she substituted used syringes filled with saline. Police said Parker had tested positive for hepatitis C before starting her job at the center in October.