Month: April 2013

Thanks to the Clean Air Act, a lot of people in the United States are breathing a little easier. The American Lung Association’s “State of the Air 2013? report, which analyzed ozone and particle levels in the air from 2009 to 20011, showed that the…        

By Jean-François Rosnoblet MARSEILLE (Reuters) – The head of a French company accused of selling sub-standard breast implants apologized for the first time on Wednesday, just days after denying that the homemade gel used to fill them posed any danger to women. The breast implant scandal triggered a global health scare and thousands of lawsuits after inspectors discovered vats of industrial-grade silicone outside French company Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) in 2010. …

(Reuters) – KFC parent Yum Brands Inc expects sales at its KFC restaurants in China to recover by the end of the year and fears surrounding a bird flu outbreak to be short-lived, company executives told analysts during a conference call. Based on prior health crises, including a bird flu outbreak in 2005, the company expects sales to improve over six to nine months, and has instituted “Operation Thunder” to restore buyer confidence in its KFC brand, said Chief Executive David Novak. …

(Reuters) – U.S. regulators have granted Merck & Co’s experimental treatment for advanced melanoma a “breakthrough therapy” designation, which could speed development and regulatory review of the product. The medicine, whose chemical name is lambrolizumab, is also being tested against other forms of cancer. It belongs to a promising class of therapies that harness the body’s immune system to find and attack cancer cells. It targets a protein called PD-1, or Programmed Death receptor. …

It all started when  Dr. Chris Kabrhel, an emergency room physician  at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston,  sent pizza to the Hillcrest Hospital staff members in Frisco, Texas, to thank them  for their hard work after the fertilizer plant explosion that killed 14 people and injured…        

By Padraic Halpin DUBLIN (Reuters) – Irish drugmaker Elan Corp said it is teeing up a number of deals under a plan to reshape the company through acquisitions and stave off a bid from investment firm Royalty Pharma. Elan, involved in a convoluted takeover saga with Royalty for the past two months, had on Monday rejected a reduced $11.25 per share bid from Royalty, saying it grossly undervalued its prospects. …

By Trevor Stokes NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – At the end of life, black kidney disease patients are more likely than white patients to continue intensive dialysis instead of choosing hospice care, according to a new study. Researchers also found that racial differences in kidney disease treatments became more extreme in the highest Medicare spending regions of the U.S. “Racial differences exist; when you add the component of geography, those racial differences widen,” said study author Dr. Bernadette Thomas, senior clinical research nephrology fellow at the University of Washington in Seattle. …