Health Highlights: Oct. 15, 2009

• Shame Boosts Hand Washing: Study
• Jury Awards $2.5 Million in Paxil-Birth Defects Lawsuit
• U.N. Agencies Aim to Reduce Diarrhea Death Toll
• Coma Patient Gives Birth to Healthy Baby

Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of HealthDay:

Shame Boosts Hand Washing: Study

Shame can make people more likely to use soap to wash their hands after using the toilet, according to British researchers.

They studied peoples' use of soap in response to hygiene messages posted in service station washrooms and found that the highest rate of proper hand washing occurred when the message asked, "Is the person next to you washing with soap?" BBC News reported.

Overall, 32 percent of men and 64 percent of women washed their hands with soap. That increased by 12 percent in men and 11 percent in women when the message, "Is the person next to you washing with soap?" was flashed on an LED screen at the washroom entrance.

"What other people think -- what is deemed to be acceptable behavior -- is probably a key determinant in shaping behavior," said study leader Gaby Judah, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, BBC News reported. "It was interesting to see that, for men, the more people there were in the (washroom), the more likely they were to wash their hands with soap."

The study was published in the American Journal of Public Health.

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Jury Awards $2.5 Million in Paxil-Birth Defects Lawsuit

Drug maker GlaxoSmithKline plans to appeal a $2.5 million verdict in a lawsuit that alleged the company's antidepressant drug Paxil caused birth defects.

While a Philadelphia jury found GlaxoSmithKline guilty of negligence, it did not find the company guilty of outrageous conduct and rejected punitive damages. The verdict is the first of about 600 similar Paxil lawsuits filed across the United States, the Associated Press reported.

This lawsuit was launched by a Philadelphia family whose son was born four years ago with a number of heart defects.

In 2005, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued warnings that Paxil may be associated with birth defects, the AP reported.

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U.N. Agencies Aim to Reduce Diarrhea Death Toll

Each year, diarrhea kills 1.5 million children under the age of 5, even though there are inexpensive and effective treatments available for this common health problem, say UN agencies.

Only about 39 percent of children with diarrhea in developing countries receive the recommended treatment, said Ann Veneman, executive director of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), Agence France-Presse reported.

Contaminated water and infections are the main causes of diarrhea, which accounts for close to 18 percent of all deaths among children under 5, according to Olivier Fontaine, the World Health Organization's children's health expert.

The two agencies have launched a new campaign to reduce diarrhea's death toll. The seven-point plan to prevent and treat diarrhea includes promotion of hand washing with soap, promotion of early breastfeeding, replacing body fluids to prevent dehydration, and zinc treatment, AFP reported.

Simply washing hands with soap can reduce the incidence of diarrhea by more than 40 percent, according to UNICEF.

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Coma Patient Gives Birth to Healthy Baby

A healthy baby boy was born to a 40-year-old woman who spent the last 22 weeks of her pregnancy in a coma, say doctors at a clinic in Germany. They described the world-first event as "extraordinary."

Clinic officials said since the 1970s, about 25 cases of brain death or coma in pregnant women have been made public, and they tend to end in miscarriage or deformed babies, Agence France-Presse reported.

"Given the mother's age -- and the completely normal state of the child -- this case is extraordinary in the scientific world and very pleasing," said Matthias Beckmann, of the University Clinic in Erlangen, southern Germany.