Month: February 2014

(Reuters) – An independent advisory panel to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said a blood clot preventer developed by The Medicines Co should not be approved due to a lack of data to prove its efficacy. The panel voted 7-2 against approving the drug, cangrelor, for use during angioplasty — a heart surgery for widening narrow or clogged arteries. The panelists also voted unanimously against allowing cangrelor’s use in patients with stents, who are at an increased risk of events such as stent thrombosis — a blood clot that forms at the site of the stent. Panelists said they were not convinced that data from an 11,000-patient trial was enough to prove cangrelor’s efficacy, especially given the failure of two prior trials.

A loss of trust in Switzerland's business and political elite may be one of the reasons the alpine nation voted in favor of putting strict limits on immigration, Swiss Economy Minister Johann Schneider-Ammann said on Wednesday. Pointing to a "culture of excess", Schneider-Ammann said pursuit of profit sometimes at the expense of the common good had turned off ordinary people from political and business leaders. Swiss voters on Sunday narrowly backed an initiative "against mass immigration," following a successful campaign by the populist right-wing Swiss People's Party, which blamed an influx of foreigners for higher crime, rising rents and congested streets. The Swiss government and business lobby groups had urged a vote against the proposal, emphasizing that it would make it difficult for businesses to recruit qualified staff on whom the Swiss economy and the banking and pharmaceutical industries depend.

By P.J. Huffstutter CHICAGO (Reuters) – Kroger Co, the biggest U.S. supermarket operator, faces a lawsuit claiming it deceived consumers by marketing a store brand as humanely raised chicken products when the animals were raised under standard commercial farming. The complaint, filed late on Tuesday in Superior Court of California in Los Angeles County, is seeking class-action status against Kroger for allegedly misleading California consumers with claims about the grocer’s “Simple Truth” premium-priced store brand of chicken. Kroger spokesman Keith Dailey told Reuters on Wednesday that the company has not had an opportunity to review the lawsuit. However, Dailey said: “What we have on our Simple Truth chicken label is information for our customers that we believe is accurate, and we intend to vigorously defend our label.” The “Simple Truth” chicken products were packaged with labeling that stated the animals were raised “in a humane environment” and “cage free,” according to the lawsuit.

A link between the weather and strokes? New research suggests there is. Higher rates of hospital stays for stroke were tied to certain kinds of weather conditions:

By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Babies born prematurely may benefit from people talking to them while they are still in the hospital’s intensive care unit, suggests a new study. Researchers found that premature babies who were exposed to more talking from adults, such as their parents, in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), tended to score higher on development tests later on. “This is certainly a remarkable, easy-to-implement and cost-effective intervention of informing moms of visiting their children in the intensive care unit,” Dr. Betty Vohr said. Vohr is the study’s senior author from the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and Women and Infants Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island.

By Scott Malone BOSTON (Reuters) – Two Rhode Island legislators introduced a bill on Wednesday that could make the state the third in the United States to legalize recreational marijuana for adults. State Senator Joshua Miller and Representative Edith Ajello, both Democrats, said the bill would regulate and tax marijuana, treating it similarly to alcohol and making it available only to users age 21 and over. The bill would allow adults to possess up to 1 ounce (28 grams) and to grow two marijuana plants. “Taxing marijuana sales will generate tens of millions of dollars in much-needed tax revenue for the state.” While possession of marijuana is still a crime under U.S. law, attitudes to the drug are changing.

By Sophie Sassard, Arno Schuetze and Anjuli Davies LONDON/FRANKFURT (Reuters) – France's Danone is weighing a sale of its tube feeding products unit which could fetch over 3 billion euros ($4.10 billion) as it expands its dairy business in higher-growth emerging markets, three people familiar with the deal said. The Medical Nutrition business, which also makes products like hypoallergenic baby food, could attract interest from peers such as Abbott , Nestle , Baxter or Fresenius , the people added. Danone inherited the business with its 2007 purchase of Dutch baby food maker Numico, so a potential sale is not surprising, said Kevin Dreyer, associate portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds, a Danone shareholder. "Even though Danone might have said publicly that they love this business too after the Numico deal, at recent investor events it gets barely a mention relative to the other businesses," Dreyer said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Wide disparities are emerging among states in health insurance sign-ups, according to an Associated Press analysis of federal enrollment statistics released Wednesday.

A Canadian study that many experts say has major flaws has revived debate about the value of mammograms. The research suggests that these screening X-rays do not lower the risk of dying of breast cancer while finding many tumors that do not need treatment.

Isaac Richardson was reported to have died Feb. 9 at a backpacker hostel southeast of London after drinking a bottle of white wine with vodka, a quarter of a bottle of whisky and a can of beer, pledging to “out do others.”