Health Report

THE GOOD NEWS

-- More evidence that vitamins can prolong life: a five-year study of nearly 30,000 peasants from rural China discovered that vitamin E, beta-carotene and selenium supplements appeared to reduce cancer deaths 13% and deaths from all causes 9%.

-- A radical though still experimental technique may someday help treat brain cancer. Doctors have used genetic engineering to make tumor cells sensitive to the antiviral drug ganciclovir. When they subsequently administered the drug to patients, five out of seven improved. More extensive tests are in the works.

-- Japanese chemists have synthesized a chemical that covers up bitter tastes, including those found in many medicines. The chemical doesn't interfere with other tastes, like sweetness.

THE BAD NEWS

-- Though they are routinely administered to pregnant women as a way to detect fetal defects, expensive ultrasound screenings have not led to an increase in healthy babies. Experts now say the test should be done only in high-risk cases or at a woman's request.

-- The HLA test, a kind of tissue matching used to decide who will probably accept a kidney transplant most successfully, is less accurate for blacks than for whites. The result: blacks receive only 22% of donated kidneys (not counting transplants from relatives) though they make up 31% of patients waiting for such an operation.

-- Tuberculosis is up 35% since 1985 among kids under 15. The Centers for Disease Control says this is fallout from the recent TB increase among adults, who are now infecting their children.

Sources -- GOOD: Journal of the National Cancer Institute; New York Times; Science. BAD: Journal of the American Medical Association; New England Journal of Medicine; A.P. )