Month: September 2013

Experts worry the devices will lead to regular smoking.        

Reports of illnesses have prompted Chobani to recall cups affected by mold.        

Health officials believe one person has died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.        

By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – It’s the leading contributor to deaths worldwide yet most people with high blood pressure don’t know they have the condition and even for those who do, treatment is mostly ineffective, according to a large new study. Researchers examined more than 140,000 adults in 17 countries and found that about 41 percent had consistently high blood pressure, also known as hypertension, but fewer than half of those people knew it. …

By Vrinda Manocha (Reuters) – Specialty pharmaceutical company Mallinckrodt Plc said its experimental painkiller significantly reduced the intensity of pain in patients who had undergone a surgical removal of bunions. The drug, MNK-795, showed statistically significant improvement in pain scores over 48 hours, compared to a placebo in a late-stage trial. MNK-795 would have to be taken only once a day unlike other generic combinations in the market. It is also designed to resist abuse. …

Five young friends from Fresno, Calif. are nursing second degree burns caused by dangerous mix of two summertime staples: sun and citrus fruit.        

MOSCOW (Reuters) – A member of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ruling party tabled a draft law on Thursday to take children away from homosexual parents, adding to a raft of measures that rights activists say are undermining gay rights. The draft law, which follows legislation banning gay “propaganda”, would add homosexuality to a list of conditions including drug and child abuse that can lead to parents being stripped of custody over their children. …

By Brett Wolf ST. LOUIS (Reuters) – Even as a shift in U.S. prosecution policy gives states more leeway to legalize marijuana, the companies that dispense it are likely to have trouble finding a bank, financial service industry and enforcement experts said. Federal anti-money laundering rules prohibit the handling of proceeds from illegal activities, and banks must follow strict monitoring and reporting procedures to stay within the law. …

(Reuters) – Nordion Inc, a provider of isotopes used in medical imaging, reported a big jump in quarterly profit on Thursday after recording an after-tax gain of about $182 million on the sale of its targeted therapies business. The Canadian company’s results beat market expectations and its shares climbed 1.8 percent to C$8.39 on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Nordion completed the $200-million sale of its targeted therapies division to British health care company BTG Plc in July. The business’s sole product was the liver cancer therapy TheraSphere. …

By Atossa Araxia Abrahamian and Toni Clarke NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. yogurt-maker Chobani is officially recalling moldy cups of Greek yogurt after customers complained that the product tasted runny and fizzy and some reported illnesses. The recall, announced on Thursday, follows nearly a week after Chobani sought to quietly remove the yogurt from store shelves without alerting the public, a strategy the U.S. Food and Drug Administration called “unusual. …

By Anne Harding NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – A type of therapy developed to treat victims of military trauma can help ease distress and depression among mothers of babies born prematurely, a new study finds. “Having a premature birth is an extremely traumatic event for the parents of that child and it’s really important that their emotional issues be recognized and addressed in some format or another,” said lead author Dr. Richard Shaw of the Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, California. …

By Kathryn Doyle NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – In a large new U.S. study, migraine headaches were found to be more likely to happen to people with lower household incomes, but tended to go into remission at the same rate for people at all income levels. It was already well know that migraines were associated with lower income, said the new study’s lead author Walter Stewart of Sutter Health in Concord, California. His first research suggesting the idea was published in 1992. …