Year: 2014

By Nita Bhalla NEW DELHI, March 31 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – India’s high vulnerability and exposure to climate change will slow its economic growth, impact health and development, make poverty reduction more difficult and erode food security, a new report by scientists said on Monday. The latest report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stresses the risks of global warming and tries to make a stronger case for governments to adopt policy on adaptation and cut greenhouse gas emissions. “This is the most extensive piece of science done on climate adaptation up until now,” Aromar Revi, one of the lead authors of the report, told a news conference. “The key issue as far as India is concerned is vulnerability and exposure.” The report predicts a rise in global temperatures of between 0.3 and 4.8 degrees Celsius (0.5 to 8.6 Fahrenheit) and a rise of up to 82 cm (32 inches) in sea levels by the late 21st century due to melting ice and expansion of water as it warms, threatening coastal cities from Shanghai to San Francisco.

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — Beverly Brignoni was a young New Yorker seeking a less expensive way to enhance her appearance and she did what many other people are now doing: travel to the Dominican Republic for cosmetic surgery.

By Mari Saito TAMURA, Japan (Reuters) – For the first time since Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster more than three years ago, residents of a small district 20 km (12 miles) from the wrecked plant are about to be allowed to return home. The Miyakoji area of Tamura, a northeastern city inland from the Fukushima nuclear station, has been off-limits for most residents since March 2011, when the government ordered evacuations after a devastating earthquake and tsunami triggered a triple meltdown at the power plant. Tuesday's reopening of Miyakoji will mark a tiny step for Japan as it seeks to recover from the Fukushima disaster and a major milestone for the 357 registered residents of the district – most of whom the city hopes will go back. "Young people won't return," said Kitaro Saito, a man in his early 60s, who opposed lifting the ban and had no intention of going home yet.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration’s health care website stumbled early Monday , falling out of service for nearly four hours on deadline day for sign-ups. After it was fixed, officials plowed ahead with a nationwide promotional drive, almost like getting out the vote on Election Day.

WASHINGTON (AP) — New research is boosting hopes that weight-loss surgery can put some patients' diabetes into remission for years and perhaps in some cases, for good.

Drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline plans to invest up to 130 million pounds ($216 million) in Africa over the next five years as chronic diseases become more common among the continent's swelling urban middle classes. The decision reflects the draw for the pharmaceutical industry of the region's rapid economic growth and rising demand for treatments for non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like heart and lung disorders, diabetes and cancer. France's Sanofi has also highlighted Africa as a promising market. Sub-Saharan Africa currently accounts for only around 500 million pounds of GSK's annual sales, which totaled 26.5 billion pounds in 2013, but the group sees potential for much more as African economies grow.

(Reuters) – Curis Inc said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration allowed it to resume testing of its experimental cancer drug, lifting a November order halting enrolment in an early-stage trial. Enrolment for the study was halted after the death of a patient with advanced breast cancer, who experienced acute liver failure about a month after the drug, codenamed CUDC-427, was discontinued. The drug is designed to neutralize major inhibitors of apoptosis or programmed cell death – a process that ensures defective, damaged or superfluous cells are eliminated. Inhibition of apoptosis helps cancer cells persist and grow.

Drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline plans to invest up to 130 million pounds ($216 million) in Africa over the next five years as chronic diseases become more common among the continent’s swelling urban middle classes. The decision reflects the draw for the pharmaceutical industry of the region’s rapid economic growth and rising demand for treatments for non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like heart and lung disorders, diabetes and cancer. France’s Sanofi has also highlighted Africa as a promising market. Sub-Saharan Africa currently accounts for only around 500 million pounds of GSK’s annual sales, which totalled 26.5 billion pounds in 2013, but the group sees potential for much more as African economies grow.

By Lawrence Hurley WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up preliminary appeals brought by Roman Catholic groups that want an exemption from part of President Barack Obama's healthcare law requiring employers to provide insurance that covers contraception. The cases were brought by a series of Roman Catholic-affiliated nonprofit groups based in Washington, D.C., including Catholic University. The legal issue is different from one involving for-profit companies that also object on religious grounds to the so-called contraception mandate, which was argued before the high court last week. The Supreme Court's decision not to hear the two cases at this stage means that the federal appeals court in Washington will proceed to decide the issue.

The website for people to enroll in U.S. private health insurance faced some delays early Monday morning, just hours before the deadline for the first year of enrollment under the healthcare law. The HealthCare.gov technology team has begun bringing the site back on line gradually after it found a software bug during their monitoring of the site and fixed it during the regular maintenance window, representatives for the Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement. It worked intermittently until a technology overhaul had it working relatively smoothly by December. Americans have until midnight on Monday to obtain health insurance under President Barack Obama's healthcare law known as Obamacare or else face fines.

(Reuters) – The success or failure of GlaxoSmithKline’s experimental heart drug darapladib remains “an open question” and will hinge on a second pivotal clinical study, the company’s chief executive said on Monday. “There are some interesting potential signals in the secondary endpoints but an awful lot about what we’ve got here is going to depend on what we see on the second study,” Andrew Witty told Reuters. “I think it is still an open question as to whether we’ve got something (that works) or not.” Although darapladib failed the main goal of the first Phase III study, the trial’s co-leader said on Sunday it still provided a glimmer of hope, after presenting a detailed report at the American College of Cardiology. The second Phase III study is looking at the drug’s effects in less stable patients who received the medicine within 30 days of a heart attack, where it is possible it may show a bigger benefit.