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| Mexican President Pena Nieto's thyroid growth benign -official Thursday, Jul 25, 2013 08:32 PM PDT  MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A nodule on Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto's thyroid gland is benign, an official in the president's office said on Thursday. Pena Nieto is due to undergo surgery to remove the nodule next Wednesday, in a procedure that will last an hour and a half, the president's office said in a statement on Wednesday. The official said the operation was a simple one and that the nodule was being removed because doctors thought that was the best course of action. Pena Nieto will spend four days recovering after the operation. ... Full Story | Top |
| Alabama executes man advocates said was mentally ill Thursday, Jul 25, 2013 06:25 PM PDT By Verna Gates BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - Alabama executed a convicted murderer on Thursday who prisoners' rights groups said was mentally ill. Andrew Reid Lackey, 29, was put to death by lethal injection at Holman Prison in Atmore, Alabama, prison officials said. It was the state's first execution since 2011. Lackey was convicted of killing Charlie Newman, an 80-year-old World War Two veteran in Athens, Alabama. Lackey made no statement before his execution, according to prison officials. He was pronounced dead at 6:25 p.m. CDT (2325 GMT). ... Full Story | Top |
| Smithfield's China deal spurs heparin heart drug safety concerns Thursday, Jul 25, 2013 05:55 PM PDT  By Toni Clarke WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers are concerned a Chinese company's planned $4.7 billion acquisition of pork producer Smithfield Foods Inc could affect the safety and availability of heparin, a blood-thinner widely used in heart surgery and kidney dialysis that is derived from pig intestines. Members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce wrote to Smithfield on July 24 asking the company to turn over information on its production of crude heparin, the raw ingredient used to make the drug. ... Full Story | Top |
| Deadly Middle East virus unlikely to cause SARS-like epidemic Thursday, Jul 25, 2013 05:36 PM PDT  By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - Despite its high current death rate, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) that emerged in Saudi Arabia last year is unlikely to cause a SARS-like epidemic because it is not spreading as easily, scientists said on Friday. In the fullest clinical analysis yet of the new virus, British and Saudi researchers said that while there are many similarities between MERS and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) - which emerged in China in 2002 and killed around 800 people worldwide - there are also important differences. ... Full Story | Top |
| Los Angeles-area campgrounds closed after squirrel found with plague Thursday, Jul 25, 2013 02:59 PM PDT By Dan Whitcomb LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Authorities have evacuated and shut down a section of a national forest outside Los Angeles for at least a week after a ground squirrel was found there infected with the plague, county public health officials said on Thursday. The squirrel tested positive for plague after it was trapped in the Angeles National Forest during "routine surveillance activities," the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said in a written health advisory. ... Full Story | Top |
| Cepheid's drug-resistant TB test gets FDA nod Thursday, Jul 25, 2013 02:47 PM PDT (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted marketing approval to Cepheid's tuberculosis test that checks if the disease-causing bacteria carry antibiotic-resistant genetic markers. The test, Xpert MTB/RIF Assay, can simultaneously detect the bacteria that cause TB and whether the strain is resistant to rifampin, an important antibiotic used to treat the infection. The FDA said the test is complicated but provides results in about two hours, compared with traditional methods that require one to three months. (http://r.reuters. ... Full Story | Top |
| U.S. FDA puts hold on Vertex hepatitis study; shares fall Thursday, Jul 25, 2013 02:31 PM PDT By Bill Berkrot (Reuters) - Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc said U.S. health regulators placed a partial clinical hold on its mid-stage study of an experimental oral hepatitis C treatment because of potential liver problems, sending its shares sharply lower on Thursday. Vertex said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration took the action on the Phase II study of its VX-135 in combination with the standard hepatitis drug ribavirin after elevated liver enzymes were observed in three patients taking the 400 milligram dose of its drug. As a result of the hold, the U.S. ... Full Story | Top |
| Obama warns House Republicans against 'deadbeat' budget tactics Thursday, Jul 25, 2013 02:29 PM PDT  By Mark Felsenthal JACKSONVILLE, Florida (Reuters) - With a busy commercial port in Florida as his backdrop, President Barack Obama warned Republican lawmakers on Thursday that threatening a government shutdown or debt default jeopardizes the fragile U.S. economic recovery. The Democratic president pushed for new spending on infrastructure and education to create more jobs in the third of a series of speeches gearing up for the next fiscal fight with Republicans in the House of Representatives. "We've got some of the House Republicans who put forward a budget that does just the opposite. ... Full Story | Top |
| Cancer trial results slow to see light of day: study Thursday, Jul 25, 2013 01:25 PM PDT By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - U.S. law requires certain research results to be posted online within a year of a study's end date, but a new analysis found that only about half of cancer drug research results are made public after three years. Researchers who looked at 646 studies examining the safety and effectiveness of cancer drugs found that 55 percent were published online or in a medical journal three years after the studies' end dates. "That has great potential to bias what we know about these drugs and devices," said Dr. ... Full Story | Top |
| Pioneer of sex research, Virginia Johnson, dies at 88 Thursday, Jul 25, 2013 01:01 PM PDT By Kevin Murphy KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - Sex researcher Virginia Johnson, part of the famed Masters and Johnson team who conducted groundbreaking work on human sexuality, has died in St. Louis at the age of 88, her son said on Thursday. Johnson suffered from various illnesses prior to her death on Wednesday at an assisted living center, Scott Johnson said. Virginia Johnson and William Masters, who died in 2001, met when she was a researcher for him at Washington University in St. Louis in the 1950s. Masters was a physician at the university and had begun researching sex in 1954. ... Full Story | Top |
| Cardiac rehab may benefit oldest patients Thursday, Jul 25, 2013 12:56 PM PDT By Kerry Grens NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Exercise-based rehabilitation programs for heart patients are tied to health benefits even among the most elderly, according to a new study. "Unfortunately, there are some people even now who believe (some patients are) too old to go into such programs. We don't believe so. It's quite the reverse. You do get a benefit from this," said Dr. Killian Robinson, one of the study authors from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. ... Full Story | Top |
| U.S. drugmakers cheer 'speed lane' for breakthrough therapies Thursday, Jul 25, 2013 12:38 PM PDT By Toni Clarke WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new regulatory pathway could shave years off the traditional drug approval process in the United States, according to some companies whose drugs have been given "breakthrough therapy" designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Speaking at a briefing in Washington to raise awareness of the drug review process, Dr. Jay Siegel, head of global regulatory affairs at Johnson & Johnson, said he expects two years to be knocked off the time it would typically take the FDA to review ibrutinib, the company's experimental cancer drug. ... Full Story | Top |
| U.S. HPV vaccination rates far from goal, officials say Thursday, Jul 25, 2013 11:44 AM PDT By Yasmeen Abutaleb WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Only slightly more than half of U.S. girls aged 13 to 17 had been vaccinated against a virus that can cause cervical and other cancers last year, and a top U.S. health official said on Thursday that more must be done to bring the rate up to the long-term goal of 80 percent. The vaccination rate to protect against human papillomavirus (HPV) was 53.8 percent last year for teen-age girls, just marginally higher than the 53 percent rate a year earlier, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday. ... Full Story | Top |
| Stomach virus linked to produce sickens 285 people in 11 U.S. states Thursday, Jul 25, 2013 11:16 AM PDT (Reuters) - At least 285 people in 11 states have been sickened by a parasitic infection commonly linked to fresh produce, and the exact cause of the outbreak has yet to be pinpointed, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday. Most of the cyclospora infections have been clustered in the Midwest, with 138 cases reported in Iowa and 70 in neighboring Nebraska. The remainder have been identified in Texas, Georgia, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, New Jersey and Ohio. ... Full Story | Top |
| U.S. makes it easier to sell medical supplies to Iran Thursday, Jul 25, 2013 11:13 AM PDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Thursday expanded the list of medical devices that can be exported to Iran without special permission, as it seeks to show support for humanitarian needs in a country that has been hit hard by Western sanctions. The United States and its European allies have tightened their economic sanctions on Iran to pressure the government to rein in its nuclear program, which the West suspects aims to produce a bomb. Iran says the program is for peaceful purposes such as generating electricity and making medical isotopes. ... Full Story | Top |
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