Month: June 2013

By Jonathan Stempel (Reuters) – General Electric Co has reached a settlement with New York’s attorney general to end a probe into whether consumers were pressured into using a health care credit card carrying a high interest rate. The settlement with GE Capital Retail Bank and its CareCredit LLC unit adds protections for patients, including some who were charged a rate as high as 26.99 percent on their CareCredit cards, the attorney general Eric Schneiderman said. …

Oral cancers like the one actor Michael Douglas referenced in a recent newspaper interview are on the rise in the United States, and doctors say that about 10,000 cases a year could be prevented with safe and effective vaccines.        

By Simon Akam FREETOWN (Reuters) – A vaccination provider set up with money from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has put on hold some $6 million earmarked for Sierra Leone after an audit showed misuse of previous funds, a document seen by Reuters showed. The leaked letter from the GAVI Alliance dated November 15 2012 and addressed to Sierra Leone’s health minister says an in-depth audit revealed “serious concerns of misuse of GAVI funds” totaling $1,099,640. …

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Soul group Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings on Monday postponed the release of its forthcoming album and tour after Jones was diagnosed with early-stage bile duct cancer, according to a statement on the band's website. The singer, 57, is to undergo surgery, and is expected to make a full recovery but will require a "lengthy" rehabilitation period, the statement said. "Over the last few weeks I haven't felt good and I didn't know what was going on," Jones said in a statement. "We just found out that I have a stage-one tumor on my bile duct. …

LONDON (AP) — Actor Michael Douglas taught the world at least one thing Monday: oral sex can sometimes cause cancer.

By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO (Reuters) – Researchers have been working for years to determine whether genetic glitches are driving high rates of especially deadly breast cancer in black women in the United States. Now, the most comprehensive genetic study yet found that one in five black women already diagnosed with breast cancer and referred for genetic counseling had at least one of 18 genetic mutations known to increase the risk of the disease. …

By Marcy Nicholson NEW YORK (Reuters) – In an increasingly diet-conscious nation where the amount of chocolate candy sold has tumbled in recent years, a niche segment of the U.S. market is taking off: so-called "healthier" chocolate. Studies declaring health benefits found in cocoa, combined with new chocolate products touting lower fat and calories, have helped manufacturers to capitalize on a growing consumer appetite for these alternative sweets in the United States, the world's biggest chocolate consumer. …

MILAN (Reuters) – A billionaire Swiss industrialist convicted for his part in Italy’s biggest asbestos scandal had his jail sentence lengthened to 18 years on Monday, in a ruling campaigners said would set a precedent for work-safety lawsuits. Stephan Schmidheiny, found guilty of negligence that led to more than 2,000 asbestos-related deaths, was also ordered to pay millions of euros in damages to local authorities, victims and their families by an appeals court in Turin. …