By Ransdell Pierson Mon Oct 29, 2012 5:39pm EDT (Reuters) - Levels of a protein believed to be a main cause of Alzheimer's disease rose in the blood of patients treated with Eli Lilly's experimental drug in late-stage trials, suggesting the protein, beta amyloid, was removed from the brain as intended, researchers said on Monday. Lilly in August disclosed...

By Frederik Joelving NEW YORK | Mon Oct 29, 2012 5:01pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Cancer doctors often refer their patients to palliative care very late in the course of disease, according to a new survey from Canada. About a third of oncologists said they refer patients to palliative care, or hospice, when they diagnose a cancer that has s...

By Genevra Pittman NEW YORK | Mon Oct 29, 2012 4:16pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Acupuncture may help relieve fatigue in women who've had breast cancer, a new UK study suggests. Researchers found that women who attended six weekly acupuncture sessions had greater improvements in fatigue as well as anxiety, depression and quality of life, com...

By Genevra Pittman NEW YORK | Mon Oct 29, 2012 4:14pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Heart attacks dropped by one-third in one county in Minnesota after two smoke-free workplace ordinances went into place, a new study shows. The lead researcher on the work said that decline was likely due to less secondhand smoke exposure in restaurants and bars...

By Frederik Joelving NEW YORK | Mon Oct 29, 2012 4:13pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Weight-loss programs can help even very young children slim down, and it appears that acting early may improve the odds of success, according to a pair of new studies. "What they are showing is a pretty consistent trend that if we were to intervene early, we c...

MARSEILLE, France | Mon Oct 29, 2012 3:55pm EDT MARSEILLE, France (Reuters) - The Frenchman who sparked a global health scare by selling substandard breast implants has been released from jail under court supervision pending a trial next year, a judicial source said on Friday. Jean-Claude Mas, who faces charges of causing involuntary bodily harm and aggr...

Mon Oct 29, 2012 3:18pm EDT (Reuters) - The deadly meningitis outbreak tied to steroid injections from potentially tainted medications spread to a 19th state on Monday with the first case reported in Rhode Island, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Only four of the 23 states that received some of the medication have not reported cases of fungal ...

Mon Oct 29, 2012 12:39pm EDT (Reuters) - The Florida Department of Health has temporarily suspended compounding operations at a pharmacy, the latest in a growing number of closings since a deadly meningitis outbreak caused by contaminated drugs in a Massachusetts facility. The Florida pharmacy, based in Boca Raton and called Rejuvi Pharmaceuticals, prepares injec...

By Bill Berkrot NEW YORK | Mon Oct 29, 2012 8:09am EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - Global drugmakers are paying tens of millions of dollars to settle U.S. allegations that they bribed their way across emerging markets, but harsher penalties may be needed to deter the practice in untapped regions where billions are at stake. Federal authorities have cast...

By Ben Hirschler and Mayumi Negishi LONDON/TOKYO | Mon Oct 29, 2012 7:03am EDT LONDON/TOKYO (Reuters) - GlaxoSmithKline has raised its bet on a promising drug for HIV/AIDS by redrawing a deal with Japan's Shionogi which gives it a much bigger economic interest in the new product. Dolutegravir, a once-daily drug that has performed strongly in clin...

By Ivan Oransky NEW YORK | Fri Oct 26, 2012 5:13pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - It is impossible to watch a Major League Baseball (MLB) game nowadays - such as those in the World Series now underway - without hearing about how many pitches a player has thrown. But a new study suggests that when it comes to preventing injuries, the obsession of...

Fri Oct 26, 2012 5:10pm EDT (Reuters) - Planned Parenthood family planning providers in Texas filed a new lawsuit on Friday over a rule that bars its clinics from a state health program for low-income women because the organization performs abortions. The suit was filed in state court, after a federal appeals court declined on Thursday to reconsider a ruling allo...

By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK | Fri Oct 26, 2012 3:49pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Getting a moderate amount of plant substances called flavonoids through the diet may be linked to a lower stomach cancer risk in women, but not men, according to a new study. European researchers found that women with the highest intake of flavonoids were half ...

By Toni Clarke and Sharon Begley BOSTON | Fri Oct 26, 2012 3:41pm EDT BOSTON (Reuters) - A cracked vial here, a missing label there. The complaints coming into New England Compounding Center, the firm at the heart of the deadly U.S. meningitis outbreak, were piling up. In March, regulators responded to a complaint from the prestigious Massachuset...

By Frederik Joelving NEW YORK | Fri Oct 26, 2012 3:01pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - In 2004, Pfizer, the world's largest drug company, agreed to plead guilty and pay more than $430 million to settle charges it had illegally marketed the epilepsy drug Neurontin for unapproved uses. Now, a study in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry questions w...

Fri Oct 26, 2012 2:56pm EDT (Reuters) - The U.S. death toll from a meningitis outbreak tied to contaminated steroid injections reached 25 on Friday following another death in Tennessee, the state where the problem was first discovered, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. In its daily update on the meningitis emergency, the CDC said the latest fat...

By Kerry Grens NEW YORK | Fri Oct 26, 2012 2:03pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Although trans fats raise your levels of "bad" cholesterol, they don't appear to have lasting impacts on your blood sugar, according to a new review of the medical evidence. Researchers found that both blood sugar and insulin, the hormone that keeps blood sugar leve...

Fri Oct 26, 2012 11:51am EDT (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday said it has approved a new leukemia treatment from Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd to be sold under the brand name Synribo. The drug, also known as omacetaxine mepesuccinate, is approved to treat a type of the blood and bone marrow cancer called chronic myelogenous leukemi...

By Genevra Pittman NEW YORK | Fri Oct 26, 2012 10:16am EDT NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Two drugs commonly used to treat alcoholism may be appropriate for people in different stages of recovery, a new analysis confirms - likely because they work differently in the brain. The drugs, acamprosate (marketed as Campral) and naltrexone (ReVia), are both...

The Chinese government donated $1.3 million in medical equipment to Costa Rica’s security ministry, the Central American country’s government said in a statement. China, which established diplomatic ties with Costa Rica in 2007, donated medical equipment including ultrasounds, X-rays and defibrillators, according to today’s statement. Since diplomatic relations were established between the c...

PAHO/WHO Technical Advisory Group on Vaccine-preventable Diseases makes recommendation in view of the challenge to guarantee a steady supply of priority vaccines and maintain achievements to date. Washington, DC, October 25, 2012 (PAHO/WHO)—The Technical Advisory Group (TAG) of the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) on Vaccine-preventable Diseases has recommen...

LONDON | Thu Oct 25, 2012 1:54pm EDT LONDON (Reuters) - A U.S. expert panel assessing Novo Nordisk's ultra long-acting insulin, degludec, will study its heart safety, raising a potential obstacle to approval in the world's top market. The panel will meet November 8 to focus on the issue, "as meta-analyses of several clinical trials suggest an excess risk...

MADRID | Thu Oct 25, 2012 12:58pm EDT MADRID (Reuters) - Spain joined other European countries in halting the sale of anti-influenza vaccines made by Swiss group Novartis, after small particles were found in some of the injections. Spain will halt the sale of all the Chiromas and Chiroflu vaccines, produced by Novartis in Italy, the Spanish Medicines and...

LONDON | Thu Oct 25, 2012 12:24pm EDT LONDON (Reuters) - Fifty-two people are confirmed to be suffering from dengue fever in the Portuguese archipelago of Madeira and another 404 probably have the mosquito-borne disease, health officials said on Thursday. Two cases of dengue - also called "breakbone fever" because of the severe pain it can cause - have a...

Thu Oct 25, 2012 12:16pm EDT (Reuters) - The deadly outbreak of fungal meningitis tied to tainted steroid medications from a Massachusetts company expanded to 18 states on Thursday with South Carolina reporting its first probable case of the disease. New England Compounding Center of Framingham, Massachusetts, shipped the steroid to 23 states and all but five of ...

By Caroline Copley ZURICH | Thu Oct 25, 2012 12:15pm EDT ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss drugmaker Novartis said flu vaccines that Italy has banned from sale are safe and it does not expect other countries to take similar action. Italy banned four anti-influenza vaccines produced by Novartis on Wednesday pending tests for possible side effects after sma...

By Bill Berkrot Thu Oct 25, 2012 12:14pm EDT (Reuters) - Biogen Idec Inc reported much higher-than-expected third-quarter profit on Thursday on increased sales of its drugs for multiple sclerosis and cancer, and the U.S. biotechnology company raised its full-year earnings forecast. The results were also helped by lower-than-expected costs, analysts said."...

By Ben Hirschler LONDON | Thu Oct 25, 2012 11:22am EDT LONDON (Reuters) - Three of Europe's top drugmakers reported falls in third-quarter earnings on Thursday, hurt by patent losses, but the common story hides different trajectories at the rival groups. While AstraZeneca faces years of continuing sales declines, due to a lack of new drugs to rep...

By Debra Sherman Thu Oct 25, 2012 10:56am EDT (Reuters) - Medical device maker Medtronic Inc edited health journal articles and paid doctors millions of dollars for company-sponsored studies of its Infuse bone-grafting product used in spinal surgery, according to a U.S. Senate report published on Thursday. There were questionable ties between Medtronic an...

By Martinne Geller Thu Oct 25, 2012 9:31am EDT (Reuters) - Energy drinks do not always divulge how much caffeine they contain, and when an amount is listed on a label, it is not always accurate, Consumer Reports magazine has found. According to a study released on Thursday by the magazine, 11 of the 27 top-selling energy drinks in the United States do not...

By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO | Wed Oct 24, 2012 7:40pm EDT CHICAGO (Reuters) - The latest data from a long-running study of hormone therapy suggests women who started taking hormone replacements within five years of menopause were 30 percent less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease than women who started years later. The findings, reported on W...

Wed Oct 24, 2012 3:56pm EDT (Reuters) - The death toll from a U.S. outbreak of fungal meningitis due to injections of tainted steroid medication has reached 24 with Indiana now reporting a third death, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday. Eight new cases of meningitis were reported, pushing the total nationally to 312 cases in 17 stat...

By Amy Norton NEW YORK | Wed Oct 24, 2012 3:31pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A newer version of the Pill may carry a slightly higher blood clot risk than older formulations - but it's still a small risk, says the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. In new recommendations, the group says that women should be aware of the "poss...

By Marice Richter DALLAS | Wed Oct 24, 2012 1:44pm EDT DALLAS (Reuters) - The U.S. outbreak of West Nile virus has killed 219 people this year, after another 36 deaths from the mosquito-borne disease were reported last week, government figures showed Wednesday. In what is the second-worst year on record for the disease, the total number of cases ...

By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO | Wed Oct 24, 2012 1:16pm EDT CHICAGO (Reuters) - An advisory committee for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted on Wednesday to recommend that pregnant women be immunized against pertussis during each pregnancy in hopes of stemming a growing U.S. outbreak of the illness, also known as whooping co...

By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK | Wed Oct 24, 2012 12:44pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A group of U.S. pediatricians on Monday recommended that cheerleading be designated an official sport, mainly to help prevent injuries, which the doctors say can be catastrophic. Some of the group's other recommendations include requiring cheerleaders to pass ...

By Tova Cohen TEL AVIV | Wed Oct 24, 2012 12:26pm EDT TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Israel-based Neuronix, which has developed a non-invasive medical device to help to treat Alzheimer's disease, expects the system to be approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration in late 2014. The device, which combines electromagnetic stimulation with computer-ba...

Wed Oct 24, 2012 11:57am EDT (Reuters) - The Food and Drug Administration issued a warning letter to Alere Inc saying the diagnostic device maker's response to the health regulator's earlier observations on manufacturing processes for the company's Triage products was not adequate. The FDA said in its letter on Monday that Alere will need to complete a revalidati...

By Susan Heavey WASHINGTON | Wed Oct 24, 2012 11:30am EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Here's one more reason to dread aging: older Americans are seeing a greater increase in obesity rates, according to a survey released on Wednesday. Data from nearly 600,000 U.S. adults showed that people aged 18 and older were more likely to be obese than they were i...

By Frederik Joelving NEW YORK | Wed Oct 24, 2012 10:39am EDT NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Many medical guidelines don't stick to quality standards designed to make them trustworthy, and the situation hasn't improved over the past two decades, researchers have found. "Everybody everywhere is developing guidelines and there is no real quality contro...