NEW YORK, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- New U.S. prescriptions for the painkiller Celebrex fell 56 percent last week after it was tied to a heightened risk of heart attacks and strokes.

In addition, new prescriptions for naproxen, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug also sold over the counter as Aleve, fell 33 percent after a study tied it to possible heart problems, the Wall Street Journal said.

The drop-off in prescriptions shows how quickly patient perception of risk can lead to huge shifts in medical practice, with implications for both their own health as well as that of the pharmaceutical industry.

Statistically, only a relatively small number of the millions taking the medicines are at risk, research shows, but medical science can't definitively say who is or isn't in danger.

Doctors are unable to reassure patients who are crowding their offices and flooding medical-center switchboards with anxious questions about whether their everyday arthritis and headache pills will give them heart attacks.

Treatment offers hope for prostate cancer

WHEELING, W.Va., Dec. 30 (UPI) -- A new study finds high-risk prostate cancer patients have a better chance of beating the disease with both internal and external radiation and hormones.

The study is published in the Jan. 1 issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, Physics, the official journal of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology.

In this study, doctors at the Schiffler Cancer Center in Wheeling, W.Va., studied nearly 200 men with high-risk prostate cancer over eight years to see if adding external beam radiation and hormone therapy to brachytherapy increased disease-free survival rates.

After eight years, nearly 94 percent of the men who had hormone therapy in addition to the two types of radiation showed no evidence of prostate cancer, compared with 84 percent of the men who only had seed implants and external beam radiation therapy.

Illinois easing flu shot restrictions

CHICAGO, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- Illinois is joining Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona and California in relaxing restrictions on who qualifies to get a flu shot.

Beginning Wednesday, many local and county health departments will begin inoculating anyone age 50 and over who wants a flu shot.

The change follows a recommendation by the national Center for Disease Control and Prevention that the nationwide influenza vaccination program be expanded beyond high-risk groups -- the elderly, chronically ill, pregnant women, children 6 months to 23 months and healthcare providers.

Michigan, Utah and Wyoming lifted all restrictions on vaccinations as shortages of vaccine resulting from contamination of nearly half of the nation's flu vaccine supply in October eased. Rationing left more vaccine than expected available.

The number of Illinois residents eligible to receive a shot will nearly double to 8.3 million, the Chicago Tribune said.

Flu season typically peaks after the holidays and can stretch into April.

Incoming freshman pioneered new painkiller

SALT LAKE CITY, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- This week's approval of a new painkiller comes 25 years after pioneering work in finding the drug was done by an incoming freshman at the University of Utah.

In 1979 J. Michael McIntosh was working in the laboratory of university biologist Baldomero Olivera when he isolated and characterized a painkiller in the venom of a cone snail.

McIntosh discovered that a component or factor in the venom affected the nervous system. He purified it and determined its chemical structure. Later, University of Utah biologist Doju Yoshikami and Olivera did research on the factor, dubbed omega-MVIIA, with George Miljanich, who worked at the University of Southern California and later moved to Neurex Corp., where he explored the factor's therapeutic potential.

Neurex was then bought by Ireland's Elan, which got Food and Drug Administration approval Tuesday to sell Prialt, as it is called, for chronic, intractable pain suffered by people with cancer, AIDS, injury, failed back surgery or certain nervous system disorders.

The drug should be available in the United States in late January 2005.