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This is Science in the News, in VOA Special English. I'm BobDoughty.

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And I'm Sarah Long. This week: calls for a listing of all drugstudies in the United States.

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The widely used chemical formaldehyde is found to cause cancer.

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More warnings about the dangers of tobacco.

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And, a panda count in China.

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Clinical trials are studies donewith groups of people to test the safety and effectiveness of newtreatments. But doctors and the general public may never learn theresults of some experiments. Now, the American Medical Associationwants to change that. It says there should be an electronic recordof all clinical trials in the United States.

The American Medical Association is the largest professionalgroup for doctors in the country. The A.M.A. has called on theDepartment of Health and Human Services to create an electronicregistry. Such a list would identify each clinical trial and permitscientists, doctors and others to find the results.

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The A.M.A says a registry would help deal with concerns thatsuccessful studies are more likely to be published than unsuccessfulones. The group says there is evidence that leaders of clinicaltrials sometimes think medical publications are not interested innegative results.

Government approval of a new medicine often depends on theresults of clinical trials paid for by the company that made thedrug. Drug companies invest millions of dollars to develop newtreatments, and millions more to sell them. Critics of the industrysay they worry about the influence of business considerations on thereporting of studies.

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The drug maker GlaxoSmithKline faces legal action in New York inconnection with this issue. State Attorney General Eliot Spitzersays the British company tried to hide information about the effectsof Paxil on children. Paxil is a medicine for depression. MisterSpitzer says the company did at least five studies in children, butpublished only one. That one showed mixed results for the drug.

The legal action says the company suppressed findings that Paxilwas not effective in children. It says the company also suppressedfindings that Paxil may increase the risk that young patients willthink about killing themselves.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved Paxil for use inadults. The only drug approved for children who are depressed isProzac. However, doctors still have a right to give children Paxil.The lawsuit in New York notes that doctors treated more thantwo-million children with Paxil in two-thousand-two.

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GlaxoSmithKline says it acted responsibly in its studies inchildren. It also says it "publicly communicated" all those studiesto government agencies worldwide.

After facing the lawsuit, GlaxoSmithKline published the resultsof its studies on its Web site. Also, another major drug maker,Merck, says it supports the idea of a registry of clinical trials.But some medical experts warn that even a complete list is not aperfect solution. They say some doctors may not use such a registryeven if it exists.

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The American Medical Association says other action would beneeded to support a registry of clinical trials. For example,medical centers and universities use committees called review boardsto approve research on humans. The A.M.A. says these review boardsshould consider requiring trials to be registered as a condition forapproval.

Also, the A.M.A. said it welcomes recent news involving theInternational Committee of Medical Journal Editors. The majorpublications that publish studies are represented on this committee.The editors were reported to be considering a proposal to publishonly the results of clinical trials that are listed in a registry.

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An agency of the World Health Organization says formaldehydecauses cancer. Until now, the agency said only that this chemicalprobably caused cancer in humans.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer is based inFrance. It gathered twenty-six scientists from ten countries. Theexperts examined additional studies. They decided that formaldehydewas more dangerous that scientists had thought. The experts saythere is now enough evidence to show that formaldehyde causes arelatively rare form of cancer of the nose and throat.

Government researchers in the United States recently announcedthat formaldehyde may cause leukemia, a cancer of the blood.However, the W.H.O. agency said more studies are needed to establishsuch a link.

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Formaldehyde is a gas usually made from methanol, a form ofalcohol. It is used in a liquid solution in substances that holdtogether materials such as wood and paper products. Formaldehyde isalso used in the production of plastics and in textile finishing. Itis used in cleaners and industrial chemicals, and in dead bodies,among other uses.

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Formaldehyde is found in smoke from vehicles and tobacco. It isfound in particle board and similar building materials. And theagency lists other places where it is commonly found, such ascarpets, paints and finishes.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer notes thedevelopment of chemicals that release less formaldehyde. It saysthese have helped reduce the levels of formaldehyde that manyworkers have to breathe in their jobs.

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In nineteen-sixty-four, the United States surgeon general warnedthe public about several diseases caused by smoking. The surgeongeneral is the top government doctor in the country. The diseasesincluded cancer of the lungs and voice box.

Later studies found that smoking causes other kinds of cancer anddisease, and harms the babies of women who smoke. Now, the currentsurgeon general, Richard Carmona, says tobacco is even moredangerous than doctors have known. The newest report on tobacco sayssmoking causes disease in almost every organ in the body. The reportexpands the list of conditions caused by smoking. New ones addedinclude leukemia, cataracts and pneumonia. Smoking is now also knownto cause cancers of the cervix, kidneys, pancreas and stomach.

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Health officials say smoking is the leading preventable cause ofdeath and disease. The new report says that on average, smokers diethirteen to fourteen years before non-smokers. Smoking also harmsother people who have to breathe tobacco smoke.

Doctor Carmona says there is no safe cigarette. The only goodnews for smokers in the surgeon general's report is that theirhealth begins to improve immediately after they stop.

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In China, researchers say almost one-thousand-six-hundred giantspandas remain in the wild. Chinese forestry officials and the WorldWildlife Fund carried out a four-year project to count the pandas.The last count took place six years ago. It foundone-thousand-one-hundred pandas, or more than forty percent fewer.

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So, are these large black-and-white animals reproducing more likerabbits than pandas? Karen Baragona of the World Wildlife Fund saysthe higher number is more likely the result of improved countingmethods.

More than one-hundred-seventy people were involved in the study.Each counter carried a global positioning device. This device uses asystem of satellites to identify a position on Earth to within a fewmeters. Karen Baragona says the panda counters also covered moreterritory than in nineteen-ninety-eight.

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China says the new count shows that government measures toprotect pandas are succeeding. In nineteen-ninety-eight, Chinabanned logging in areas where giant pandas live. The government hasalso set up forty protected forest areas for pandas.

But Karen Baragona notes that the census found that one-third ofthe giant pandas do not live in protected areas. She says thepressure for economic development in China threatens those animals.And she says the protected areas are disconnected, like separatepanda islands across six mountains.

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SCIENCE IN THE NEWS was written by Caty Weaver and Cynthia Kirk,who was also our producer. This is Sarah Long.

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And this is Bob Doughty. Join us again next week for more newsabout science, in Special English, on the Voice of America.