| | |
| Son of former New Jersey governor Jon Corzine commits suicide Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 08:17 PM PDT (Reuters) - Former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine's 31-year-old son, Jeffrey, committed suicide at a Mexico City hotel this week, a person familiar with the matter said on Thursday. Jeffrey Corzine had been living in Malibu, California, and was an aspiring photographer, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity and could not name the hotel. Corzine family spokesman Steven Goldberg confirmed Jeffrey Corzine's death in a written statement. "The sad fact is that Jeffrey Corzine had been suffering from severe depression for several years and recently had been receiving treatment for what is a very painful and debilitating physical and mental ailment," Goldberg said. Full Story | Top |
| Mother sues Missouri shop for selling gun later used in murder Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 05:42 PM PDT By Kevin Murphy KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - A Missouri gun shop is facing a wrongful death lawsuit after selling a handgun to a woman who is charged with using it to murder her father. The Washington-based Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence brought the suit on behalf of Janet Delana, who said she warned the gun store not to sell any guns to her daughter, Colby Sue Weathers, because of a long history of mental illness. Gunmen in shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut and at a movie theater outside of Denver, for example, were described later as having psychological issues. More than a dozen wrongful death lawsuits are pending against gun dealers, some involving sales to customers who were not mentally stable, said Jonathan Lowy, a Brady Center lawyer who helped file the Missouri lawsuit. Full Story | Top |
| UK to fast-track some drugs under early access scheme Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 05:04 PM PDT By Ben Hirschler LONDON (Reuters) - Britain is to accelerate access to ground-breaking drugs for serious conditions under a new early-access plan that the government hopes will benefit both patients and pharmaceutical companies. The initiative, which has similarities with a U.S. scheme that has speeded the development of so-called "breakthrough" medicines, follows criticism that Britain's state-run healthcare system is too slow to adopt new medical treatments. Doctors will be able to prescribe promising new drugs as soon as the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency - the country's drugs watchdog - signals that the benefits outweigh the risks, following an initial scientific assessment. The program will be funded by drug companies. Full Story | Top |
| Gay couples sue Florida to recognize marriages in other states Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 04:25 PM PDT By David Adams MIAMI (Reuters) - Eight Florida gay couples backed by a gay rights group have filed a lawsuit to force the state to recognize same-sex marriages from other states, saying their exclusion violates the right to equal protection under the U.S. Constitution. The lawsuit, filed late Wednesday, comes on the heels of another in January filed by six same-sex couples seeking to overturn the state's ban on gay marriage. Florida's refusal to recognize out-of-state marriages unlawfully denies gay couples legal protections available to different-sex couples and discriminates against their children, according to the lawsuit filed in Florida's Northern District. The lawsuit is also being brought by the SAVE Foundation, a gay rights group that does education and grassroots organizing in Florida, on behalf of its members, with the support of the Florida branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Full Story | Top |
| Partisanship engulfs U.S. Congress effort to avoid doctor pay cut Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 04:24 PM PDT  By David Morgan and Susan Cornwell WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bipartisan deal in Congress to spare doctors from recurring Medicare pay cuts was in jeopardy on Thursday, as Republicans ignored protests from physicians and moved forward with legislation that would use the so-called "doc fix" to undermine Obamacare. Hundreds of thousands of doctors who participate in traditional Medicare face a 24 percent pay cut on April 1, as part of a 1990s initiative to restrain federal spending on the government healthcare program, which today serves nearly 50 million elderly and disabled people. Doctors thought they would see a permanent fix this year after Republicans and Democrats in the House of Representatives and Senate agreed on a policy to replace the payment formula, known as the sustainable growth rate or SGR, according to lobbyists, congressional aides and analysts. Full Story | Top |
| New Mexico nuclear repository mishap leaves Los Alamos waste quandary Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 04:18 PM PDT By Joseph J. Kolb ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (Reuters) - The Los Alamos National Laboratory is evaluating how to meet a June deadline to permanently discard plutonium-tainted junk in light of a prolonged shutdown of a New Mexico nuclear waste dump after an accident there last month, a lab official said. Los Alamos, one of the leading U.S. nuclear weapons labs, has been forced to halt shipments of its radioactive refuse some 300 miles across the state to the nation's only underground nuclear repository, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, near Carlsbad, according to lab spokesman Matt Nerzig. The repository has remained closed while the U.S. Department of Energy investigates the origins of a radiation leak that occurred there on February 14, exposing at least 17 workers at the facility to radioactive contamination. Nerzig said about 1,000 temporary storage drums of the waste remain at the Los Alamos National Laboratory awaiting shipment to the repository near Carlsbad. Full Story | Top |
| Florida Supreme Court voids caps on medical malpractice lawsuits Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 03:51 PM PDT By Bill Cotterell TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) - The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a state law that placed a $1 million limit on the amount of money people can be awarded in wrongful death cases caused by medical malpractice. The 5-2 ruling declared as unconstitutional a key provision of a 2003 malpractice law signed by then-Governor Jeb Bush and enacted by a Republican-controlled state legislature. Supporters of the 2003 law said at the time the limits were needed to keep a lid on insurance rates to prevent doctors from leaving Florida during what they described as a "medical malpractice crisis." In its ruling, the court said the limits violate the right of equal protection under Florida's constitution. Full Story | Top |
| Move to replace Pap smear with HPV test meets with skepticism Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 02:58 PM PDT By Deena Beasley LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - U.S. health experts recommended that a test for cancer-causing strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV) be approved to replace Pap smears in screening most women for cervical cancer, but the plan met with some skepticism within the medical community. Roche Holding AG is seeking Food and Drug Administration approval to market its cobas HPV test, which detects the DNA of 14 strains of the sexually-transmitted virus, as a stand-alone tool to screen for cervical cancer risk in women age 25 and older. But experts said it will be tough to convince doctors to move from the current testing guidelines, which call for the use of both Pap tests and HPV tests, since there have been no studies directly comparing the regimens. "The preferred method of screening right now is Pap tests and HPV together. Full Story | Top |
| Rising Salmonella infections tied to backyard poultry flocks Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 02:41 PM PDT By Shereen Jegtvig NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People who keep small poultry flocks may be at an increased risk for salmonellosis, but the infections are preventable, researchers say. The growing local foods movement has sparked a rise in the number of people keeping small flocks of chickens or ducks at home, and a rise in human infections with Salmonella bacteria has been linked to birds from mail-order hatcheries, according to a new study. "We have seen an increasing number of outbreaks of Salmonella infections in people being sick that have been linked back to having chickens and ducks in your backyard," said Dr. Casey Barton Behravesh, who led the study. Barton Behravesh, a Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Public Health Service, is affiliated with the Division of Foodborne, Waterborne, and Environmental Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. mulls drug testing for aircraft repairers overseas Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 02:37 PM PDT The U.S. aviation regulator is considering requiring drug and alcohol testing of workers maintaining aircraft operated by U.S. air carriers in facilities located outside the United States, but could face problems with a myriad of local laws. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will take public comments on its proposal after posting a Federal Register notice on Thursday. The agency requires random drug and alcohol testing for maintenance workers based in the United States, but its regulations do not extend to companies or individuals who perform those critical functions on overseas. "The testing program would have to meet FAA standards and be consistent with the applicable laws of the country where the repair station is located," the FAA said, warning of "significant logistical issues and possible conflicts with local laws." The agency said the comment period would help it address questions such as which drugs are most misused in particular countries, whether the allowable concentrations of alcohol or drugs needed to be the same in all countries, and whether there are laws in some nations that would prevent random testing. Full Story | Top |
| Survival post-surgery linked to hospital differences Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 02:14 PM PDT By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Disparities between rich and poor in who survives major cancer surgeries may have more to do with the hospitals where they're treated than with individuals' wealth or lack of it, a new study suggests. Researchers found that even the wealthiest patients at hospitals treating primarily poor communities tended to fare worse after major cancer surgeries than the poorest patients at hospitals treating primarily wealthy communities. "We know people in the lower socioeconomic status have worse outcomes, but it's always harder to get at the underlying mechanism for those worse outcomes," Dr. Amir Ghaferi told Reuters Health. Several studies have found that a person's risk of death after major cancer surgery is linked to economic status, Ghaferi and his colleagues write in JAMA Surgery. Full Story | Top |
| TSX drops on China, Ukraine worry; gold stocks jump Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 02:09 PM PDT  By John Tilak TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index fell on Thursday with almost every major sector declining as worries grew about soft economic data from China and the crisis in Ukraine. Russia conducted military exercises near its border with Ukraine, while U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said serious measures would be taken by the United States and Europe if the referendum on Crimea joining Russia takes place on Sunday as planned. In China, growth in investment, retail sales and factory output slipped to multiyear lows, reinforcing concerns raised by a recent wave of weak economic figures in the world's second-biggest economy. "Today's action seems to be driven not just by the ongoing situation in Ukraine but also this spate of soft data that continues to come out of China," said Elvis Picardo, strategist at Global Securities in Vancouver. Full Story | Top |
| Wall Street tumbles as Ukraine tensions rise, China slows Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 01:56 PM PDT  By Angela Moon NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks tumbled on Thursday, with the Dow and the S&P 500 suffering their worst day since early February, on rising concerns over Ukraine and Russia and new signs of a slowdown in China. Selling accelerated in afternoon trading after Russia launched military exercises near its border with Ukraine, showing no sign of backing down in its plans to annex its neighbor's Crimea region despite a stronger-than-expected push for sanctions from the EU and the United States. In an unusually robust and emotionally worded speech, German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned of "catastrophe" unless Russia changes course. The CBOE Volatility index VIX , Wall Street's so-called fear gauge, jumped more than 12 percent to 16.22. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. senators urge help for producers hit by killer pig virus Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 01:40 PM PDT  By Ros Krasny WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two U.S. senators urged the U.S. Department of Agriculture to approve disaster assistance for small pork producers affected by a deadly virus that has killed more than four million pigs across the United States in the past year. Democrats Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and Kay Hagan of North Carolina, the number two U.S. hog producer, also urged increased research to find a vaccine for Porcine Endemic Diarrhea Virus (PEDv), for which no treatment currently exists. "Pork producers that have been impacted by PEDv face economic devastation," the senators wrote in a letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, dated March 11 and released on Thursday. There have been 4,458 confirmed outbreaks of PEDv in 27 states, according to figures from the USDA's National Animal Health Laboratory Network released on Thursday. Full Story | Top |
| Deadly pig virus spreads to Arizona; 27 U.S. states now affected Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 01:38 PM PDT (Reuters) - Arizona is the latest state to confirm cases of the deadly Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus, a highly contagious pig disease, increasing the tally of U.S. states with confirmed cases to 27, a group of animal health researchers said. Virginia has reported positive samples of the virus in the environment, but not yet in a hog herd, according to data released on Thursday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Animal Health Laboratory Network. While one case can represent an individual animal or an entire herd at a single site, hog industry analysts estimate PEDv has killed between 4 million and 5 million U.S. hogs since it was discovered in May 2013. "Anytime we have a disease that cuts numbers, it cuts Checkoff income," said John Parker, spokesman for the Virginia Pork Council, referring to The Pork Checkoff which funds research, including disease research, and programs to promote the U.S. pork industry. Full Story | Top |
|
No comments:
Post a Comment