Month: September 2013

By David Jones NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) – New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed a bill on Wednesday allowing sick children greater access to medical marijuana, weeks after saying he would do so if the state legislature agreed to revisions. The revisions to the bill, nicknamed "pot for tots," required that at least two doctors, including a pediatrician, approve the treatment and tightened the language to ensure that only minors could get access to edible forms of marijuana besides lozenges. …

By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Exposure therapy and antidepressants help lessen the severity of symptoms for people with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) more than the medication alone, according to a new study. In the case of people with moderately severe OCD symptoms, the combination of so-called exposure and ritual prevention therapy with antidepressants was more effective than the combination of antidepressants and antipsychotic medications at reducing symptoms. …

By Kathleen Raven NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Heavy supplementation of vitamin D did not reduce diarrheal illnesses among children aged three and younger in a large trial conducted in Kabul, Afghanistan. The results are disappointing in light of a body of research that has consistently linked high vitamin D levels to improved immune system function and deficiency to a higher risk of infectious diseases, the researchers write in the journal Pediatrics. “It was thought that vitamin D supplementation would help in the prevention of diarrheal illnesses,” lead author Dr. …

By Genevra Pittman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Overweight and obese people are at higher-than-average risk of migraines, suggests a new study. Researchers looking at so-called episodic migraines – headaches that occur less than every other day – found they were almost twice as common among obese people as among normal-weight adults. …

By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) – U.N. rights investigators have established that Syrian government forces were almost certainly responsible for two massacres last May in which up to 450 civilians were killed, a report published on Wednesday said. The report documents nine mass killings in all, attributing all but one to government forces, but said both government and rebel fighters had committed war crimes including murder, hostage-taking and shelling of civilians. …

Introduction to the Hallmarks of Cancer

By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) – Scientists have succeeded in generating new stem cells in living mice and say their success opens up possibilities for the regeneration of damaged tissue in people with conditions ranging from heart failure to spinal cord injury. The researchers used the same “recipe” of growth-boosting ingredients normally used for making stem cells in a petri dish, but introduced them instead into living laboratory mice and found they were able to create so-called reprogrammed induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells). …

GENEVA (Reuters) – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called on the United States and Russia to also address the obstacles to delivering aid in Syria at talks on Thursday focusing on the use of chemical weapons. Syrian government forces and opposition rebels are both preventing medical assistance in particular from reaching the sick and wounded, viewing it as "military support for the other side", ICRC President Peter Maurer said on Wednesday. …

By Caren Bohan WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Putting off a decision on military strikes on Syria allows President Barack Obama to shift his attention back to a weighty domestic agenda for the fall that includes budget fights, immigration and selecting a new chairman of the Federal Reserve. Obama and his aides have immersed themselves for a week and a half in an intensive effort to win support in Congress for U.S. military action in Syria after a suspected chemical weapons attack last month killed more than 1,400 people. …

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — The annual rate of hospitalizations for valley fever, a potentially lethal but often misdiagnosed disease, has doubled over the past 12 years in California, according to a study published on Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

By Sanjeev Miglani and Sruthi Gottipati NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Indian prosecutors demanded on Wednesday the death penalty for four men convicted of raping and murdering a 23-year-old trainee physiotherapist last December, saying it was important to send a signal to the country that such crimes would not be tolerated. “The common man will lose faith in the judiciary if the harshest punishment is not given,” special public prosecutor Dayan Krishnan told trial judge Yogesh Khanna, who will sentence the men on Friday. …