Month: May 2013

MEXICO CITY (AP) — President Barack Obama said Thursday he was comfortable with his administration's decision to allow over-the-counter purchases of a morning-after pill for anyone 15 and older.

By Ronnie Cohen SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Nevada health officials acknowledged on Thursday that a state-run hospital improperly bused 10 newly discharged psychiatric patients out of the state with deficient plans for their care, while Los Angeles launched a criminal probe into the alleged “patient dumping.” Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital has been under fire since last month, after a Sacramento Bee investigative series reported that hospital staff gave as many as 1,500 patients one-way Greyhound bus tickets from Las Vegas to California and 46 other states over the past five years. …

WASHINGTON (AP) — It's a chemical that's been in U.S. households for more than 40 years, from the body wash in your bathroom shower to the knives on your kitchen counter to the bedding in your baby's basinet.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Lindsay Lohan appeared to have skipped out on a court-ordered rehab program on Thursday, before doing a disappearing act and possibly violating her probation again. Although her lawyer assured a Los Angeles judge on Thursday that she had checked in to start a 90-day stint imposed for a June 2012 reckless driving case, Lohan was photographed about the same time shopping in a Southern California electronics superstore. …

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department is suing Chemed Corp and its hospice subsidiaries, including the biggest U.S. for-profit hospice chain, alleging false billings for Medicare hospice services. The government said on Thursday that its complaint accuses Chemed and its leading hospice subsidiary, Vitas Hospice Services, of being involved in the submission of false claims for crisis care services that proved to be unnecessary, were never actually provided or failed to meet Medicare requirements. …

By Steve Holland MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – President Barack Obama said on Thursday he is comfortable with a U.S. government agency's decision to allow over-the-counter purchases of a morning-after pill for anyone 15 and older. Some critics have complained girls that young should not be allowed to purchase the pills without a doctor's approval. But Obama told a news conference in Mexico City that the decision was based on "solid scientific evidence." The U.S. …

By Adithya Venkatesan (Reuters) – Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc withdrew an application to market its anti-obesity drug in the European Union, sending its shares down 15 percent in after-hours trading. The European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) said certain “major objections” remain outstanding that preclude the recommendation of approval of the drug, according to the company. European health regulators raised objections on the marketing of the drug, Belviq, in late-January, following tumors in rats, heart valve disorders and psychiatric events. …