Year: 2014

The fundraiser was cancelled after critics called the charity “anti-vaccine.”

A U.N. envoy on Monday urged Myanmar to allow the return of aid groups forced to flee attacks in Rakhine state, warning their departure threatened "severe consequences" for Muslims sheltering in camps from violence by majority Buddhists. Tomas Ojea Quintana, the U.N.'s Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar, said water shortages could reach critical levels within a week in some displacement camps, where 140,000 people live as a result of communal conflict since 2012. "These workers were in Rakhine State providing essential life-saving support, including health services, water and food to internally displaced persons, isolated villages, and other affected communities," Quintana said. Recent developments in Rakhine State were the latest in a long history of discrimination against the Muslim Rohingya community, which he said "could amount to crimes against humanity".

Specialty pharmaceuticals company Mallinckrodt Plc will buy drugmaker Questcor Pharmaceuticals Inc for about $5.6 billion to gain access to its multiple sclerosis drug, Acthar Gel, which is set to hit sales of $1 billion this year. The acquisition is Dublin-based Mallinckrodt’s second in less than two months as it pushes into the lucrative specialty drugs market, which focuses on complex and chronic diseases. Mallinckrodt’s shareholders took a dim view of the deal, however, pushing the company’s shares down as much as 10 percent. Questcor has been facing federal probes into its marketing practices related to Acthar and multiple accusations from short-seller Citron Research.

By Barbara Lewis BRUSSELS (Reuters) – A pioneering European Union survey into the impact of pests and diseases on honey bees found death rates were lower than feared, in part countering concerns about the collapse of colonies of the crop-pollinating insects. The study of 32,000 bee colonies across 17 EU member states from late 2012 until summer 2013 found winter mortality rates ranged from 3.5 percent to 33.6 percent. The winter of 2012-13 was particularly cold and the highest mortality rates were in northern countries with harsher climates. During the beekeeping season, when the insects are active, mortality rates were between 0.3 percent and 13.6 percent.

By Kathryn Doyle NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – For young kids who are hard of hearing, the longer they wear a hearing aid, the better their speech and language skills, according to a new study. “Parents get some conflicting information, especially if their kids only have mild hearing loss: should they get hearing aids now or wait until later,” said Mary Pat Moeller, an audiologist. But even kids in the study with only mild hearing loss had significantly improved speaking skills if they wore hearing aids, Moeller told Reuters Health. For the new report, the researchers analyzed data from 180 hard of hearing three- and five-year-olds, almost all of whom had been fitted with hearing aids.