Year: 2014

By Laila Kearney SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The U.S. Navy plans to test hundreds of homes for radiation in a remote San Francisco neighborhood after an object containing radium was found beneath an unoccupied residence in the area last fall, city officials said on Tuesday. In the coming weeks Navy officials will begin surveying about 600 homes on Treasure Island, a manmade land mass in the San Francisco Bay that once served as a naval base, said Bob Beck, a director with the city’s Treasure Island Development Authority. The Navy and the agencies with which it is working on the cleanup, including the California Department of Public Health and the state Department of Toxic Substances Control, were not immediately available for further comment. The Navy began cleaning up Treasure Island shortly after the base was closed in 1997.

A spate of regulatory warnings for India's generic drug manufacturers will add a new emphasis on the quality of such medicines in an industry long dominated by the ability to deliver treatments as cheaply as possible, analysts say. In the short term, that is expected to benefit larger global competitors, such as Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, Actavis Plc and Mylan Inc, which will be called upon to supply drugs no longer available from some of their rivals in India, they said. Now the ability to supply the market and have a reliable supply, to be in good favor with the FDA, that's starting to mean something to customers," said Gabelli & Co analyst Kevin Kendra. The biggest setback for India's $14 billion a year generic drug industry came in January, when the FDA banned imports from all the Indian plants of Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd, India's No. 1 drugmaker by sales, over repeated production quality lapses.

By Joan Biskupic WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Supreme Court arguments over federal healthcare policy were nearly finished on Tuesday when Justice Anthony Kennedy challenged Obama administration lawyer Donald Verrilli on abortion rights. While defending the part of the 2010 healthcare law known as Obamacare that requires companies to cover birth control as part of employee health insurance, Verrilli said it was unlikely the government would demand corporations pay for abortions.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew's treatment for a benign enlarged prostate on Tuesday "went well and as planned," a Treasury spokesperson said. "The secretary is now resting comfortably and continues to expect to resume his normal schedule in Washington next week," U.S. Treasury spokesperson Natalie Wyeth Earnest said. Lew, 58, was sworn in as Treasury secretary in February 2013 after serving as President Barack Obama's chief of staff. (Corrects typo in second paragraph.) (Reporting by Timothy Ahmann; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli)

By Alphonso Toweh and Saliou Samb MONROVIA/CONAKRY (Reuters) – West African nations scrambled on Tuesday to contain an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus suspected to have killed at least 59 people in Guinea, with symptoms of the disease reported in neighboring Sierra Leone and Liberia as well. The spread of Ebola, one of the most lethal infectious diseases known, has spooked nations with weak health care systems. In Guinea’s southeast, home to all the confirmed cases, residents are avoiding large gatherings and prices in some markets have spiked as transporters avoid the area. Health authorities in Liberia said they had now recorded eight suspected cases of Ebola, mainly in people who crossed the border from Guinea.

By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Women who have their breasts removed because of cancer may benefit from receiving radiation if they still have traces of cancer in their lymph nodes, suggests a new analysis. Radiation reduced the risk of death and of cancer returning among women who had cancer cells detected in the cluster of nodes under the arms after a mastectomy. “It has been clear for some time that women in whom the disease has not spread to the lymph nodes in the armpits will not benefit from radiotherapy,” Sarah Darby told Reuters Health. “It’s been unclear what the benefit is for women with one, two or three positive lymph nodes,” she said.

By Angela Moon NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks ended higher on Tuesday, rebounding from a two-day decline as the hard-hit biotechnology sector regained its momentum and a strong read on consumer confidence increased optimism about the economy. Trading was choppy throughout the day with the Nasdaq at one point turning lower, led by a sharp reversal in biotech shares. .So-called momentum stocks were still down for the day but off their lows, including Netflix , down 2.1 percent at $370.84. Netflix has declined for 14 of the past 15 sessions, falling almost 19 percent over that stretch Biotech shares also reversed earlier losses, including Regeneron Pharma , ending 0.8 percent higher at $308.87, and Gilead Sciences Inc , up 1.3 percent at $73.03.