Month: July 2014

Paracetamol, the first-choice lower-back pain killer, worked no better than dummy drugs administered in a trial of more than 1,600 people suffering from the condition, researchers said Thursday. In fact, the median recovery time for those on placebo was a day shorter than that for trial subjects given real medicine, they wrote in The Lancet medical journal. "Our findings suggest that… paracetamol does not affect recovery time compared with placebo in low-back pain, and question the universal endorsement of paracetamol in this patient group," the Australian team concluded. "Paracetamol also had no effect on pain, disability, function, global symptom change, sleep or quality of life."

That love scene from “The Fault in Our Stars” is so intense.

By Edmund Blair NAIROBI (Reuters) – Nigeria could cut the number of polio cases to zero next year and be declared free of the disease in 2018 even though a national eradication campaign has had to contend with an insurgency in the north, Bill Gates told Reuters. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation supports the global initiative to wipe out polio, which includes a campaign in Nigeria, one of three nations where the crippling virus is still endemic. "We have got all the challenges up in northern Nigeria, the violence from Boko Haram, and the distraction of an upcoming election," Gates said in a telephone interview, referring to an Islamist rebel group that has in the past targeted vaccination workers, and to Nigeria's national vote next year. “We hope by the end of next year we’d be at zero." He added that if there were no more cases for three years after that, Nigeria could be certified clear in 2018.

Prominent Australian right-to-die doctor Philip Nitschke on Thursday vowed to continue giving advice on how to end life after the Australian Medical Board used emergency powers to suspend him. The ruling — an interim measure pending the outcome of an inquiry — follows the suicide of Perth man Nigel Brayley who died in May after communicating with Nitschke. Brayley died after taking euthanasia drug Nembutal, which he illegally imported. Police were treating her death as murder and Brayley was reportedly being investigated about his involvement, although he was never named as a suspect.

By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) – Paracetamol, a painkiller universally recommended to treat people with acute low back pain, does not speed recovery or reduce pain from the condition, according to the results of a large trial published on Thursday. A study published in The Lancet medical journal found that the popular pain medicine was no better than placebo, or dummy, pills for hastening recovery from acute bouts of low back pain or easing pain levels, function, sleep or quality of life. Researchers said the findings challenge the universal endorsement of paracetamol as the first choice painkiller for lower back pain. “We need to reconsider the universal recommendation to provide paracetamol as a first-line treatment,” said Christopher Williams, who led the study at the University of Sydney in Australia.

By Caroline Copley BASEL (Reuters) – Swiss drugmaker Roche confirmed its full-year sales and profit targets on Thursday as growing momentum for its new breast cancer medicines and professional diagnostics products countered the effects of a strong Swiss franc. Unlike other pharmaceutical companies that have been ravaged by patent losses, Roche has yet to face a challenge to its older biotech drugs by makers of copycat treatments and has launched a string of new, expensive cancer medicines. The Basel-based firm hopes these so-called follow-on drugs will help it defend sales in its breast and blood cancer businesses once generic competition arrives. Its strategy looked sound after first-half sales of Perjeta, which targets the same protein found on some cancer cells as Roche's older blockbuster Herceptin, surged 276 percent to 388 million Swiss francs ($429.68 million).

Russia's annexation of Crimea has led to a surge in deaths among intravenous drug users, who no longer have access to vital therapy, specialists said at the world AIDS forum on Thursday. Michel Kazatchkine, former head of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, and now the UN's AIDS envoy for eastern Europe, told AFP he was "very concerned" and had heard of "20 documented deaths, possibly more." Under Ukrainian rule, Crimea provided intravenous drug users with access to methadone, a safer substitute for heroin, and to buprenorphine, a drug used to ease dependence. Endorsed by the World Health Organisation (WHO), this opioid substitution therapy (OST) helps to wean addicts off heroin and to halt the spread of HIV through prostitution and shared syringes, according to campaigners.

By Zeba Siddiqui MUMBAI (Reuters) – India’s Ipca Laboratories Ltd said on Thursday it has voluntarily suspended shipments to the United States from one of its drug ingredient manufacturing plants after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expressed concerns regarding the unit. Ipca, a mid-sized generic drugs and ingredients maker, said the FDA issued a so-called “Form 483”, a letter in which the agency typically outlines violations of its guidelines observed during inspections of manufacturing plants. Ipca did not give details about the contents of the Form 483 that it had received. Over the past year, large Indian drugmakers such as Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd and Wockhardt Ltd have been hit by a spate of regulatory sanctions due to concerns about production processes at their local plants.

South Korea has confirmed a case of foot-and-mouth disease at a hog farm, the country’s first outbreak in more than three years, the agriculture ministry said in a statement on Thursday. The case comes as Asia’s fourth-largest economy strives to contain a six-month outbreak of bird flu, which has pushed pork prices to multi-year highs due to demand for alternative meat. Testing confirmed a foot-and-mouth case at a hog farm in Uiseong county, more than 250 km (155 miles) southeast of Seoul, said statements from the ministry and the Gyeonsangbuk-do provincial government. The pork imports are already high after South Korea’s worst nationwide outbreak of foot-and-mouth in 2010-2011 led to the culling of a third of the hog population.