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| Toronto Mayor Ford may have tried to buy crack video -police documents Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 06:03 PM PST  By Cameron French TORONTO (Reuters) - Toronto Mayor Rob Ford may have offered cash and a car to buy a video allegedly showing him using crack cocaine, according to notes from police wiretaps. Ford admitted early last month he had smoked crack cocaine, saying it was probably "in one of my drunken stupors," but he said he is not an addict and does not need help. The existence of an alleged video was initially reported in May by the Toronto Star newspaper and media website Gawker. Ford said at the time that he could not comment on a video he had not seen "or does not exist." But according to police notes of a recorded phone conversation involving two suspected gang members, Ford was aware of the video's existence in March, and offered to buy it. Full Story | Top |
| Mexico finds stolen radioactive material amid dirty bomb fear Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 04:39 PM PST  By Fredrik Dahl and Ana Isabel Martinez VIENNA/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican police have found dangerous radioactive medical material stolen by thieves that the United Nations said could provide an ingredient for a "dirty bomb," the country's national nuclear safety commission CNSNS said on Wednesday. The truck was found on Wednesday close to where it was stolen outside Mexico City. The thieves removed the radioactive material from a protective case, exposing them to dangerous levels of radiation then dumped it less than a mile away. "Both the container and the radioactive source have been located," said Mardonio Jimenez Rojas, an official at the commission, told Reuters. Full Story | Top |
| New factory puts Iceland in biosimilar drugs race Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 04:05 PM PST Iceland is joining the race to make copycat versions of complex biotech drugs with an investment of $250 million in development and manufacturing by Alvotech, a sister company of privately owned U.S.-based Alvogen. The money will pay for a 11,800 square meters facility in Iceland that will open in early 2016. Alvotech was founded by Icelandic entrepreneur Robert Wessman, who also heads Alvogen and who has a track record of building generic drug businesses. He ran Actavis until four years before its 2012 sale to Watson. Full Story | Top |
| Dementia epidemic looms with 135 million sufferers seen by 2050 Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 04:04 PM PST By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - Many governments are woefully unprepared for an epidemic of dementia currently affecting 44 million people worldwide and set to more than treble to 135 million people by 2050, health experts and campaigners said on Thursday. Fresh estimates from the advocacy group Alzheimer's Disease International (ADI) showed a 17 percent increase in the number of people with the incurable mind-robbing condition compared with 2010, and warned that by 2050 more than 70 percent of dementia sufferers will be living in poorer countries. "It's a global epidemic and it is only getting worse," said ADI's executive director Marc Wortmann. It's vital that the World Health Organization makes dementia a priority, so the world is ready to face this condition." Alzheimer's, the most common form of dementia, is a fatal brain disease that has no cure and few effective treatments. Full Story | Top |
| Diners say not biting on KFC's China revival campaign Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 03:30 PM PST  By Lisa Baertlein and Adam Jourdan NEW YORK/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Yum Brands Inc's KFC website in China trumpets the slogan "Trust in every bite." That message is part of the company's new "I Commit" campaign intended to reassure customers in its largest market, who have cut back on visits since Chinese media reports a year ago about excessive antibiotic use by a few KFC suppliers. It is China's largest Western restaurant operator with roughly 4,500 KFC outlets, and the company reaps more than half of its overall operating profit there. Despite a decades-long reputation for serving safe food in China, KFC has struggled to fully restore diners' trust in a country where dangerous contamination scandals are commonplace. Interviews with Chinese consumers suggest that rather than soothing concerns, KFC's new ads are reminding diners about the food safety scare at the fried-chicken chain, which could undermine Yum's mission to revive sales there. Full Story | Top |
| After health law woes, Obama returns focus on middle class, poor Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 02:59 PM PST  By Mark Felsenthal WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Seeking to recover from the bungled rollout of his healthcare reforms, President Barack Obama went back to basics on Wednesday with a renewed focus on government policies that benefit the struggling poor and middle classes. With his job approval ratings sinking, Obama sought to promote some of the ideals he has championed throughout his presidency. "We have to relentlessly push a growth agenda," Obama told a supportive crowd at a community center in one of the capital's poorest neighborhoods. "A relentlessly growing deficit of opportunity is a bigger threat to our future than our rapidly shrinking fiscal deficit." He challenged Republicans in Congress to do more than say 'no' to initiatives including raising the minimum wage or expanding health coverage: offer alternatives and set aside a preoccupation with cutting government spending. Full Story | Top |
| Mexico finds stolen truck that carried radioactive material: official Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 02:19 PM PST Mexican police have found a truck they suspect was stolen by common thieves and carried a dangerous radioactive medical material the United Nations said could provide an ingredient for a "dirty bomb," a government official said on Wednesday. The truck was found close to where it was stolen outside Mexico City, said the official, who asked not to be identified in line with policy. The truck was stolen on Monday while it was taking cobalt-60 from a hospital in the northern city of Tijuana to a radioactive waste-storage center, Mexican officials and a U.N. agency said earlier. Full Story | Top |
| Hundreds of commuters evacuated from San Francisco area train Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 02:18 PM PST By Laila Kearney SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Hundreds of passengers on a San Francisco Bay Area commuter train were evacuated on Wednesday after a parking brake suddenly deployed in a tunnel and passengers complained of smoke inhalation, authorities said. As many as 15 passengers complained of smoke inhalation, the Oakland Fire Department said on its Twitter feed. "This is primarily due to being confined on the train in the tunnel, and there was smoke or brake dust that resulted from the train trying to move while the brake was engaged," BART spokesman Jim Allison said in a recorded message. There was no immediate word on what caused the parking brake to deploy, nor whether passengers felt ill from breathing smoke, fumes or brake dust. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. Republicans broaden attacks on Obamacare Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 01:56 PM PST  By Caren Bohan and Susan Cornwell WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With the Obamacare website performing better, congressional Republicans on Wednesday returned to their broader attack on President Barack Obama's healthcare law, warning that it would harm the quality of medical care and drive up costs. They used hearings in the U.S. House of Representatives to highlight what they say are flaws in the 2010 Affordable Care Act that go beyond the potentially transitory issues of the website, HealthCare.gov, and cancellations of several million insurance policies that did not meet the law's standards. Repeating predictions they have been making since the law was being debated in Congress in 2009, Republicans said it would end up restricting consumers' choices of doctors and would ultimately saddle families and businesses with higher premiums. "The Affordable Care Act's fundamental problems can't be fixed with better marketing. Full Story | Top |
| China mother, fined $54,200 for flouting one-child policy, sues for basic rights Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 01:47 PM PST  By Sui-Lee Wee BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese warehouse worker Liu Fei was fined 330,000 yuan ($54,200), or 14 times her yearly wage, for having a second child and her failure to pay means the boy has no access to basic rights like schooling and healthcare. Their dilemma has now triggered a rare legal battle against the police for denying the boy a "hukou" - household registration - due to strict family planning laws. Family planning officials in Beijing told Liu in 2011 she would not be able to obtain a "hukou" if she did not pay up. If I had known, I would never have given birth." Liu's ordeal underscores the punitive nature of China's family planning policy, beyond the more well-known stories of forced abortions and sterilizations, and highlights the plight of an estimated 13 million undocumented children, known as "black children". Full Story | Top |
| Jamaica launches its first medical 'ganja' company Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 01:33 PM PST  By Horace Helps KINGSTON (Reuters) - It's been a long time coming, but the birthplace of reggae and legendary pot-lover Bob Marley has announced the launch of its first medical marijuana company. Jamaican Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce Anthony Hylton was among government officials on hand at a ceremony in the capital, Kingston, on Tuesday night where the opening of the company known as MediCanja was formally announced. The island nation, world famous among connoisseurs for the distinctive and almost mystical allure of its pot known locally as ganja, has long been known as the leading Caribbean supplier of illegal marijuana to the United States. But MediCanja marks the first known effort to find a legitimate source of revenue from Jamaica's bountiful, but still illicit, crop of marijuana. Full Story | Top |
| Pfizer to expand clinical data access to researchers, patients Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 01:08 PM PST  By Bill Berkrot NEW YORK (Reuters) - Global drugmaker Pfizer Inc will broaden access to information from its scores of clinical trials to independent researchers and to patients who take part in the studies, the company said on Wednesday. Pfizer, the largest U.S. pharmaceutical company, said it hoped the enhanced access to its data will help spur further scientific and medical research as well as encourage more patients to get involved in clinical trials. "We are impressed to see how active patients are individually to manage and understand their disease, and in patient foundations a tremendous, great job is made to contribute to the advance of care," Pfizer research chief Mikael Dolsten told reporters at the company's New York headquarters. "We think this is the right time to support this trend." The move comes at a time of increasing pressure on the pharmaceutical industry to be more transparent with clinical trial information - including safety data and details of failed studies - and to increase access for the scientific community. Full Story | Top |
| Analyst who cast doubt on Provenge vaccine settles with SEC Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 12:46 PM PST A former hedge-fund analyst who argued that Dendreon Corp's therapeutic vaccine for prostate cancer may hasten the death of patients has reached a settlement with U.S. securities regulators over failure to disclose her financial interests in the company. Marie Huber, who trained as a biochemist at Cambridge University in England and worked at an unnamed New York hedge fund from 2007 to 2011, neither admitted nor denied the Securities and Exchange Commission's findings, according to the agency. Huber said she stood by her analysis of the vaccine, Provenge. The SEC settlement bars her from the securities industry for six months and requires her to pay a $25,000 fine. Full Story | Top |
| Wisconsin Assembly approves delay in state Medicaid changes Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 12:45 PM PST  By Brendan O'Brien MILWAUKEE (Reuters) - Wisconsin legislators on Wednesday approved delaying by three months a plan to shift thousands of people from a state Medicaid program onto the federal health insurance marketplace, which has been plagued by technical problems. The Republican-led Assembly voted 64-32 to approve a proposal that would allow 72,000 people due to be shifted from Wisconsin's BadgerCare Medicaid program on January 1 to stay on until the end of March. Republican Governor Scott Walker sought the delay. The majority Republican state Senate could vote on the delay later in December. Full Story | Top |
| Risk of falls increases between cataract surgeries Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 12:05 PM PST The finding that corrective eye surgery may - at least temporarily - be linked to an increase in falls comes after years of conflicting study results on the subject, researchers write in the journal Age and Ageing. But the topic remains important as the global population ages and demand for cataract surgery increases. In Australia, where the study was conducted, cataract surgeries tripled over the past two decades. "This study tells us that timing of cataract surgeries is very important," Dr. Ediriweera Desapriya of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, told Reuters Health. Full Story | Top |
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