Month: March 2014

By Kathryn Doyle NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Parents who spank their babies are at greater risk of eventually having Child Protective Services called in to protect their kids than parents who do not spank, according to a new study. “A few other studies have shown that parents that spank their children are also more likely to engage in harsh physical punishment and abusive parenting behaviors,” said lead author Shawna J. Lee from the University of Michigan School of Social Work in Ann Arbor. The American Academy of Pediatrics does not endorse spanking for any reason, and suggests time-outs as an alternative. “The collective research over the past 20 years on spanking and physical punishment clearly indicates that hitting your child is related to a wide range of negative outcomes and hasn’t shown any benefit to the child,” said Tracie O. Afifi, who studies physical punishment at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg.

BOSTON (Reuters) – Technology publisher International Data Group said on Thursday Patrick Joseph McGovern, its founder and chairman, has died aged 76. In 1964, McGovern founded what became IDG, headquartered in Boston and known for publications like Computerworld and PCWorld along with various events and websites. McGovern’s private foundation remains the majority owner of the company. The company said McGovern died on Wednesday. It did not give a cause of death. …

By Ben Hirschler and Caroline Copley BASEL, Switzerland (Reuters) – Recent manufacturing problems in India suggest some makers of generic drugs will struggle to compete in the face of a rising quality bar, pointing to a likely a shake-out in the low-cost sector, according to Novartis. Chief Executive Joe Jimenez said the Swiss group’s Sandoz unit – a world leader in making cheap off-patent medicines – was well placed to thrive in an era of tougher standards. “You’re talking about an industry where scale is going to become more important … I see this as a competitive advantage for a company like Novartis.” In recent months, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, citing quality control problems ranging from data manipulation to sanitation, has banned the importation of products from Indian firms such as Ranbaxy Laboratories and Wockhardt.

By Caroline Copley and Ben Hirschler BASEL, Switzerland (Reuters) – Novartis Chief Executive Joe Jimenez is taking a hard look at the drugmaker's smaller businesses as he reshapes the company for what he expects to be a "brutal" new era in healthcare spending. At least one of the three sub-scale units – animal health, vaccines and over-the-counter medicines – is not expected to make the cut, he told Reuters in the clearest indication yet of how the review is progressing. While the three smaller divisions make up only 10.5 percent of Novartis sales, the review – which is due to be completed by the end of the summer – is a major focus for shareholders who are pushing all drugmakers to improve returns on investment. The industry has already seen Abbott Laboratories split off its innovative drugs into Abbvie, Pfizer spin out animal health into Zoetis, and GlaxoSmithKline sell drinks brands Lucozade and Ribena.

(Reuters) – Geron Corp said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ordered a halt to new patient enrollments in an early-stage trial of its blood cancer drug, imetelstat, over concerns about liver damage. The halt announced on Thursday was for enrollments in a trial sponsored by Mayo Clinic, and comes a week after the FDA ordered Geron to cease company-sponsored trials of the drug over similar concerns. Imetelstat is Geron’s only remaining drug and was touted as the company’s savior after curing 22 percent of myelofibrosis patients in a trial last year. Geron said on Thursday that it could not enroll new patients in the Mayo Clinic-sponsored study, but that the trial could continue with patients benefiting from the drug.

Danish pharmaceutical group Alk Abello expects to start selling its new dust mite allergy tablet in Europe and Japan around the end 2015 with the U.S. market a further year behind, its Chief Executive told Reuters on Thursday. The HDM SLIT-tablet, which just entered third phase in the development program in North America, could be the most important of three allergy tablets the company is developing in association with American healthcare company Merck, Alk’s Chief Executive Jens Bager said in an interview. “House dust mite-allergy is one of the most debilitating allergies and is often associated with allergic asthma and affects more than 30 million Americans.” He said that studies in Europe and Japan show Alk’s HDM SLIT-tablet is able to reduce dust mite allergy symptoms significantly, adding that there were few rival medicines on the market.

By Kate Kelland, Health and Science Correspondent LONDON (Reuters) – Half a million people fell sick with dangerous superbug strains of tuberculosis (TB) in 2012, but fewer than one in four were diagnosed, putting the rest at risk of dying due to the wrong medicines or no treatment at all. Latest data from the World Health Organisation (WHO), which says drug-resistant TB is a “global health security risk”, showed a third of the estimated 9 million people who contract TB in any form each year do not get the care they need. This has led to drug resistance spreading around the world at an alarming rate and has given rise to incurable strains of the bacterial infection – known as totally drug-resistant TB – which cannot be treated with any known medicines. “Earlier and faster diagnosis of all forms of TB is vital,” said WHO director general Margaret Chan as the U.N. health agency published new TB data on Thursday.