Today's Reuters Health News Headlines - Yahoo! News:
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Marijuana initiative could make or break Obama in Colorado
Sat,2 Jun 2012 02:06 PM PDT
Reuters -  DENVER (Reuters) - Throughout his presidency, Barack Obama hasn't exactly been a friend to marijuana users. Sure, he has acknowledged smoking pot as a young man, but he has disappointed marijuana advocates by opposing its legalization, regulation and taxation like alcohol. And the Justice Department's occasional crackdown under his administration on medical marijuana dispensaries, which 17 states and the District of Columbia allow, has angered others. ...
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J&J hormone-blocking pill slows prostate cancer spread
Sat,2 Jun 2012 11:20 AM PDT
Reuters - CHICAGO (Reuters) - A trial of Johnson & Johnson's Zytiga in certain prostate cancer patients showed that it doubled the amount of time they lived without the disease getting worse, potentially offering new hope for patients who see their cancer return. The trial, involving 1,088 patients who had stopped responding to traditional hormonal drugs but had not been treated with chemotherapy, found that Zytiga slowed the spread of the disease by 58 percent. ... Full Story | Top |
Bristol immune drug shows promise in three cancers
Sat,2 Jun 2012 06:20 AM PDT
Reuters - CHICAGO (Reuters) - An experimental Bristol-Myers Squibb drug helped shrink tumors in patients with advanced melanoma, kidney and lung cancers in a preliminary trial, raising hopes for yet another drug that can wake up the immune system and train it to attack cancer cells. Early-stage tests of the drug BMS-936558, known as an anti-PD-1 treatment, showed it was relatively safe and shrank tumors in three of the five cancer types studied, the team reported at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting on Saturday and published online in the New England Journal of Medicine. ... Full Story | Top |
Hospitals fight drug scarcity, fear patients harmed
Sat,2 Jun 2012 05:59 AM PDT
Reuters -  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - At the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, pharmacists are using old-fashioned paper spreadsheets to track their stock of drugs in short supply - a task that takes several hours each day. Most of the hospital's medicines - with usage estimated at $100 million a year - are tracked by automated systems that allow for quick reorders when the supply runs low. But these automated systems, designed to help the hospital avoid purchases and storage costs of unused pills and vials, do not work if it is uncertain when the next batch of drugs will come in. ...
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Avastin delays progression of ovarian cancer
Fri,1 Jun 2012 09:06 PM PDT
Reuters - CHICAGO (Reuters) - Adding cancer drug Avastin to standard chemotherapy doubled the length of time a certain group of advanced ovarian cancer patients lived without their disease getting worse, according to results of a clinical trial. The study involved 361 women whose cancer had stopped responding to traditional platinum-based chemotherapy. After a median follow-up of 13.5 months, 75 percent of Avastin patients had a recurrence of cancer, compared to 91 percent of those who received chemotherapy alone. The median time to disease progression or death was 6. ... Full Story | Top |
U.S., Norway pledge $150 million for maternal health
Fri,1 Jun 2012 05:16 PM PDT
Reuters - OSLO (Reuters) - The United States and Norway each pledged on Friday to give in the range of $75 million to help protect mothers during labor, delivery and the first 24 hours after birth. The money would go into the "Saving Mothers, Giving Life," initiative, a partnership financed with public and private funds that seeks to reduce the death of mothers immediately before, during and soon after they give birth. Recalling the 1980 birth of her daughter, Chelsea, U.S. ... Full Story | Top |
Walgreen, Express Scripts drop claims against each other
Fri,1 Jun 2012 03:05 PM PDT
Reuters - (Reuters) - Walgreen Co said on Friday that it and drug benefits manager Express Scripts Holding Co had dropped claims against each other stemming from a September 2011 lawsuit, but said the dismissals did not mean they were any closer to reaching a new deal. Walgreen, the largest U.S. drugstore chain, stopped filling prescriptions in January for members of Express Scripts, which manages prescription drug benefits for employers and other clients, after the two companies failed to agree on terms to renew their contract. ... Full Story | Top |
U.S. nuns push back against Vatican crackdown
Fri,1 Jun 2012 02:07 PM PDT
Reuters - (Reuters) - The largest organization of U.S. Catholic nuns on Friday rejected a Vatican assessment that they had fallen under the sway of radical feminism and needed to hand control of their group over to a trio of bishops. The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, whose members represent about 80 percent of nuns in the United States, issued a sharp statement calling the Vatican's rebuke unsubstantiated and "the result of a flawed process that lacked transparency. ... Full Story | Top |
Do doctor-payment sunshine laws work?
Fri,1 Jun 2012 02:04 PM PDT
Reuters - NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The mere passage of a law that requires drug companies to disclose how much money they pay doctors may not change physician prescribing practices, suggests a new study. In two states that passed so-called sunshine laws requiring drugmakers to disclose payments, doctors' choices of which drugs to prescribe for their patients did not differ much from those of peers in states without such a law. ... Full Story | Top |
Study questions fructose role in hypertension
Fri,1 Jun 2012 01:24 PM PDT
Reuters - NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Sweet drinks have been linked to a slightly higher risk of developing high blood pressure, but, contrary to earlier research, a large new study finds that fruit sugar in those drinks is not the likely culprit behind that association. Following more than 200,000 men and women for up to 38 years, researchers found that regularly consuming sweetened drinks -- either containing sugars or artificially sweetened -- was associated with a rise of about 13 percent in the risk of developing high blood pressure. ... Full Story | Top |
Babies fed soy formula develop as well as others
Fri,1 Jun 2012 01:21 PM PDT
Reuters - NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - One-year-olds raised on breast milk, regular formula or soy formula seem to fare equally well in brain development, a new study suggests. Past studies have found that, as far as growth, babies given soy formula develop the same as their peers fed breast milk or traditional formula made from cow's milk. But not much was known about signs of brain development, like an infant's early language skills. The new study, reported in the journal Pediatrics, suggests that brain development is similar, whether babies get breast milk, standard formula or the soy variety. ... Full Story | Top |
Allergan wins new trial in big Botox damages case
Fri,1 Jun 2012 12:29 PM PDT
Reuters - (Reuters) - Allergan Inc has been granted a new trial in a case brought by a man who won a $212 million jury verdict last year after claiming he was disabled by taking Botox injections. Douglas Ray Jr's jury award had already been slashed to less than $13 million total under Virginia state law, and now, after a federal judge's ruling on Friday, he will have to make his case all over again. Ray accused Allergan of failing to warn doctors of the risk that Botox injections could cause autoimmune reactions that lead to brain damage. ... Full Story | Top |
Medical marijuana legalized in Connecticut
Fri,1 Jun 2012 12:11 PM PDT
Reuters - NEW YORK (Reuters) - Connecticut on Friday became the 17th U.S. state to legalize the medical use of marijuana. The state's Governor Dannel Malloy signed into law legislation allowing licensed physicians to certify an adult patient's use of marijuana for medical purposes, according to a statement from the governor's office. The new law puts in place restrictions to prevent the kind of abuse that has plagued some of the 16 other states and the District of Columbia where pot is legal for medical use. ... Full Story | Top |
Premature babies have higher psychiatric risk
Fri,1 Jun 2012 11:27 AM PDT
Reuters - LONDON (Reuters) - Babies born prematurely have a much higher risk of developing severe mental disorders including psychosis, bipolar disorder and depression, according to a study to be published on Monday. Scientists in Britain and Sweden found that people born very prematurely - at less than 32 weeks' gestation - were three times more likely than those born at term to be hospitalized with a psychiatric illness at age 16 and older. The researchers think the increased risk may be down to small but important differences in brain development in babies born before a full 40 week gestation period. ... Full Story | Top |
Hospitals fight drug scarcity, fear patients harmed
Fri,1 Jun 2012 11:09 AM PDT
Reuters -  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - At the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, pharmacists are using old-fashioned paper spreadsheets to track their stock of drugs in short supply - a task that takes several hours each day. Most of the hospital's medicines - with usage estimated at $100 million a year - are tracked by automated systems that allow for quick reorders when the supply runs low. But these automated systems, designed to help the hospital avoid purchases and storage costs of unused pills and vials, do not work if it is uncertain when the next batch of drugs will come in. ...
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