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| British experts say they have found London's lost Black Death graves Sunday, Mar 30, 2014 07:38 PM PDT  By Andrew Osborn LONDON (Reuters) - Archaeologists in Britain said on Sunday they had solved a 660-year-old mystery, citing DNA tests which they said proved they had found a lost burial site for tens of thousands of people killed in medieval London by the "Black Death" plague. The breakthrough follows the discovery last year of 13 skeletons wrapped in shrouds laid out in neat rows during excavations for London's new Crossrail rail line, Europe's biggest infrastructure project. Archaeologists, who say the find sheds new light on medieval England and its inhabitants, later found 12 more skeletons taking the total to 25. Limited records suggest up to 50,000 victims were buried in the cemetery in London's Farringdon district, one of two emergency burial sites. Full Story | Top |
| Afghan woman bids for power to halt slide in rights Sunday, Mar 30, 2014 05:22 PM PDT  By Katharine Houreld and Jessica Donati KABUL/KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - The deeply conservative, all-male crowd at Afghanistan's Kandahar stadium stared in disbelief as the small woman in a modest black headscarf stood up and reached for the microphone. Habiba Sarabi's speech in the southern Taliban heartland city lasted only a few minutes, thanking the crowd for supporting her candidacy in next month's presidential election. During their strict Islamist rule from 1996-2001, the Afghan Taliban had banned women from education, voting and most work, and they were not allowed to leave their homes without permission and a male escort. A fair election would mark Afghanistan's first democratic transfer of power, a monumental achievement for Afghans struggling to end decades of bloodletting and cement fragile gains in education, health and human rights. Full Story | Top |
| Liberian health authorities confirm two cases of Ebola: WHO Sunday, Mar 30, 2014 04:18 PM PDT By Alphonso Toweh MONROVIA (Reuters) - The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Sunday that Liberia has confirmed two cases of the deadly Ebola virus that is suspected to have killed at least 70 people in Guinea. The outbreak of the highly contagious Ebola, which in its more acute phase, causes vomiting, diarrhoea and external bleeding, has sent Guinea's West African neighbors scrambling to contain the spread of the disease. Eleven deaths in towns in northern Sierra Leone and Liberia, which shares borders with southeastern Guinea where the outbreak was first reported, are suspected to be linked to Ebola. Full Story | Top |
| AstraZeneca digs into new Cambridge home with MRC drug deal Sunday, Mar 30, 2014 04:02 PM PDT By Ben Hirschler CAMBRIDGE, England (Reuters) - AstraZeneca, which will complete its move to Cambridge by 2016, is already putting down roots in the ecosystem of the university city as it seeks to revitalize its drug research. Britain's second-biggest pharmaceuticals group said on Monday it had struck an unique deal with the state-funded Medical Research Council (MRC) under which academic scientists will work alongside its staff at its new Cambridge site. Transplanting AstraZeneca to the university city in the east of England forms the centerpiece of a $2.5 billion restructuring plan by Chief Executive Pascal Soriot, who hopes closer links with academia will spark ideas and innovation. AstraZeneca has suffered a dry period in drug discovery in recent years and badly needs to find new medicines to replace blockbusters like Nexium for heartburn and Crestor for high cholesterol that will lose patent protection in a few years. Full Story | Top |
| Medtronic valve for heart defects works well a year later: study Sunday, Mar 30, 2014 02:35 PM PDT By Ransdell Pierson and Bill Berkrot WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A non-surgically implanted heart valve meant to delay open heart surgery in children with congenital heart defects worked well for all but a few patients during a year of follow-up observation, in line with favorable results seen in original clinical trials of the Medtronic Inc product. The Melody transcatheter pulmonary valve was approved in 2010 under a U.S. humanitarian device exemption, which allowed it on the market as long as a follow-up study was conducted to assess the product's reliability and safety. "The valves had excellent function during the first year, judged by no more than mild leakage and very few patients had narrowing of the valve," said Dr. Aimee Armstrong of the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital Cardiac Catheterization Laboratories, who was lead investigator for the follow-up study sponsored by Medtronic. Within the first year of the study, eight adverse events were seen, including three cases of heart infections, two abnormal heart rhythms and one case each of bacterial infection, major stent fracture and blood clot in the lung. Full Story | Top |
| Chinese parents, trapped in one-child web, give babies away on Internet Sunday, Mar 30, 2014 02:16 PM PDT  By Lavinia Mo, Sui-Lee Wee and Li Hui GANZHOU, China (Reuters) - Lu Libing knew he had only one choice as the birth of his third child approached. On the Internet he found "A Home Where Dreams Come True", a website touted as China's biggest online adoption forum, part of an industry that has been largely unregulated for years. Expectant couples, unwilling or unable to keep their children, go to the website looking for adoptive parents rather than abort their babies or abandon them. There are no clear statistics on how many people use these websites but "A Home Where Dreams Come True" said 37,841 babies had been adopted through its website from 2007 to August 2012. Full Story | Top |
| China's war on smog will be won or lost in polluted Hebei Sunday, Mar 30, 2014 02:13 PM PDT By David Stanway BEIJING (Reuters) - China's war on pollution is only a few weeks old, but the battle lines are already being drawn between Beijing and Hebei, the province most synonymous with dirty air. A succession of Hebei officials used the annual session of parliament in Beijing this month to urge the central government to boost subsidies to help with job losses and other costs from mandated cuts in industrial production across the country. One local official said Hebei was taking on too much of the burden. The pleas came after Premier Li Keqiang, in his opening address to parliament on March 5, declared war on pollution in an attempt to head off growing anger over the quality of China's air, water and soil. Full Story | Top |
| Ancient rheumatism drug reduces recurring inflammation around heart Sunday, Mar 30, 2014 12:49 PM PDT A drug that was used in the time of the pharaohs for rheumatism has proven highly effective in treating recurrent bouts of pericarditis, an inflammation of the sac surrounding the heart, according to findings of a new clinical trial. The ancient medicine, colchicine, which has also been used for centuries as an anti-inflammatory agent for acute gout, was tested against placebo in a 240-patient pericarditis trial. The rate of recurring pericarditis was nearly halved for those taking colchicine compared with placebo, according to data presented on Sunday at the annual scientific sessions of the American College of Cardiology in Washington. The condition, which causes sharp chest pain, recurred in 42.5 percent of those taking dummy pills, compared with 21.6 percent of those who got colchicine. Full Story | Top |
| Glaxo heart drug that failed trial shows potential benefit Sunday, Mar 30, 2014 08:34 AM PDT  By Bill Berkrot and Ransdell Pierson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new type of heart drug being developed by GlaxoSmithKline, which failed the main goal of a Phase III study of patients with chronic but well-treated heart disease, showed signs of potential benefit, the trial's co-leader said. "I'm convinced there is a signal here of efficacy and the drug is safe," said Dr. Harvey White, co-chair of the large, Glaxo-sponsored international study, who presented the findings. The real test of darapladib is likely to come from a second, late-stage study in far less stable patients who received the medicine within 30 days of a heart attack. Glaxo had previously said darapladib did no better than a placebo in decreasing the risk of a combination of cardiovascular death, heart attack and stroke in the trial called Stability. Full Story | Top |
| GSK to invest in new factories and drug R&D in Africa Sunday, Mar 30, 2014 07:57 AM PDT  GlaxoSmithKline plans to make new investments in additional factories and drug research in Africa, its chief executive said on Sunday, as the pharmaceuticals group broadens its bet on promising emerging markets. Andrew Witty said the continent was important for the British company's long-term growth, adding that the investment would create jobs and build up healthcare capacity in a key region. "The transformation of Africa into a successful growth region is one area that we need to focus on," Witty wrote in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper. GSK, which already makes drugs in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, is now looking at sites for additional facilities in countries including Ghana, Ethiopia and Rwanda, a company spokeswoman said. Full Story | Top |
| Kraft challenged by "healthier" macaroni and cheese brands Sunday, Mar 30, 2014 06:05 AM PDT  By Lisa Baertlein LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Kraft Macaroni & Cheese has been a favorite meal for generations of American children, but smaller brands made with more natural ingredients are starting to nibble at its market share, part of a trend that is biting into growth at large U.S. food companies. Zenobia Godschalk, an Atlanta mother of two young boys, stopped buying Kraft's "mac and cheese" after reading its complicated ingredient list. Now she buys Annie's organic version in bulk at Costco Wholesale Corp . "I'm fully aware that it is not a health food," said Godschalk, of Annie's macaroni and cheese product. Full Story | Top |
| Edwards heart valve system tops Medtronic version in small study Sunday, Mar 30, 2014 05:53 AM PDT The minimally invasive aortic heart valve replacement system from Edwards Lifesciences Corp performed better than a rival product sold by Medtronic Inc in the first head-to-head study of the two, according to data from a small German trial presented at a major heart meeting on Sunday. While the results are unlikely to be seen as decisive, given the size and limited scope of the study, they could provide the Edwards sales force with a valuable marketing tool as the two companies vie for market share with their competing transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) systems. Both systems employ a catheter to thread the new valve through an artery into place in the heart, sparing patients too frail for open heart surgery from the invasive chest cracking procedure. The Edwards Sapien XT uses a balloon to expand the compressed valve once it is in position in the diseased valve, while the Medtronic CoreValve has a special self expanding valve using an alloy that reacts to body heat to open. Full Story | Top |
| Obamacare hits milestone, but detours ahead for health law Sunday, Mar 30, 2014 05:34 AM PDT  By David Morgan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's embattled U.S. healthcare law, having survived a rollout marred by technology failures, reaches a milestone on Monday with the end of its first enrollment wave, and with the administration likely to come close to its goal of signing up 7 million people in private health insurance. But as the White House and its allies declare victory, major hurdles remain. And it will take years to determine whether the law will accomplish its mission of creating stable insurance markets that can help a significant number of America's nearly 50 million uninsured gain health coverage, experts say. Republicans are counting on that uncertainty to play into their strategy for the midterm congressional elections in November. Full Story | Top |
| Senegal shuts land border with Guinea to prevent Ebola spreading Sunday, Mar 30, 2014 01:24 AM PDT By Daniel Flynn and Saliou Samb DAKAR/CONAKRY (Reuters) - Senegal closed its land border with Guinea on Saturday to try to prevent the spread of the Ebola virus, which Guinean authorities say is suspected of killing 70 people in the deadliest outbreak in seven years. The discovery of 11 people suspected to have died of Ebola in Sierra Leone and Liberia in recent days has stirred concern that one of the most lethal infectious diseases known to man could spread in a poor corner of West Africa, where health systems are ill-equipped to cope. Senegal's Interior Ministry said in a statement it had closed the land border with Guinea in the southern region of Kolda and the southeastern region of Kedougou. Full Story | Top |
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