Month: May 2013

Angelina Jolie and the One Percent

By Eric Kelsey LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Ray Manzarek, a founding member and keyboardist of 1960s rock group The Doors, died on Monday at a medical clinic in Germany at age 74 following a battle with cancer, the group's manager Tom Vitorino said. Manzarek, who lived in Northern California's Napa Valley wine country for the past decade, had been seeking treatment in Germany for bile duct cancer, Vitorino said. He died in Rosenheim, Germany, surrounded by his wife and brothers. …

WASHINGTON (AP) — New research is challenging medical guidelines that say people with a heart-zapping device in their chests should avoid intense sports like basketball and soccer in favor of golf or bowling.

LONDON (Reuters) – British farmers will be the first in Europe to get a vaccine against Schmallenberg virus, a new livestock disease that hit the continent in 2011. Britain’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said on Tuesday that MSD Animal Health, a unit of Merck & Co, had been issued a license for the new vaccine after an accelerated assessment to make it available this summer. As a result, farmers will be able to vaccinate sheep and cattle before most of them become pregnant, which is important as exposure to the virus can cause damage to foetuses. …

By Nate Raymond and Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. authorities brought criminal charges against three New York University researchers on Monday, alleging they conspired to take bribes from Chinese medical and research outfits for details about NYU research into magnetic resonance imaging technology. A criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan charged Yudong Zhu, 44, Xing Yang, 31, and Ye Li, 31, with commercial bribery conspiracy in connection with NYU research financed by the U.S. government. …

(Reuters) – Pfizer Inc, which has been on a hot streak with three recent approvals of cancer drugs, stumbled on Monday, saying it was halting a late-stage trial of a drug for aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma after independent monitors found it was not likely to improve survival. Pfizer said it would continue to study the experimental drug, inotuzumab ozogamicin, in other hematologic cancers. …

By P.J. Huffstutter (Reuters) – Farms in two of the nation’s leading pork producing states have tested positive for the potentially fatal porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV), U.S. pork industry veterinarian official said Monday. Three farms in Iowa and one Indiana operation have confirmed cases of the virus, said Dr Lisa Becton, director of swine health information and research for the National Pork Board. The cases in Iowa were located on farms “all across the state, not in one specific area,” Becton said. PEDV does not pose a food safety or health risk to humans and the pork is safe eat. …