By Genevra Pittman NEW YORK | Wed Oct 24, 2012 8:39am EDT NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People with chronic dry mouth related to cancer treatment reported some improvement in symptoms like sticky saliva and dry lips after eight weeks of group acupuncture, in a new study from the UK. It's not clear how much of that benefit could have been a result o...

By Amy Norton NEW YORK | Tue Oct 23, 2012 3:12pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Severe complications from childbirth are rare in the U.S., but they are becoming more common, a new government study finds. Between 1998 and 2009, the rate of serious complications like heart attack, stroke, severe bl...

By Toni Clarke and Tim McLaughlin BOSTON | Tue Oct 23, 2012 3:08pm EDT BOSTON (Reuters) - The pharmacy tied to a deadly U.S. meningitis outbreak escaped harsh punishment from health regulators several times in the years leading up to the health crisis that has raised questions about oversight of the customized drug mixing industry, newly released...

Tue Oct 23, 2012 1:40pm EDT (Reuters) - An independent safety panel determined that Celgene Corp's experimental cancer drug had met the main goal of a late-stage trial by improving progression-free survival in multiple myeloma patients who have relapsed or not responded to prior treatment, the drugmaker said. The study's data safety monitoring board also determin...

By Kate Kelland LONDON | Tue Oct 23, 2012 1:01pm EDT LONDON (Reuters) - Genetic testing could help doctors find the small number of patients with advanced bowel cancer likely to benefit from cancer drug Avastin, scientists said on Tuesday. In a study of Roche's blockbuster drug, which targets and blocks a protein called VEGF-A, researchers found ...

WASHINGTON | Tue Oct 23, 2012 12:36pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration has agreed to relax Medicare's requirements for skilled nursing and home health care, allowing beneficiaries to qualify for benefits even if their conditions are not expected to improve, according to court documents. A proposed settlement of a national class-action ...

Tue Oct 23, 2012 11:22am EDT (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs removed Monster Beverage Corp from its conviction buy list after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it was investigating reports of five deaths that may be linked to the company's namesake energy drinks. Shares of the company, which makes drinks such as Java Monster, Monster Rehab, and X-Presso Monste...

By Kerry Grens NEW YORK | Tue Oct 23, 2012 11:02am EDT NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Doctors don't need to double-check the results of a negative strep throat test because any missed cases typically don't result in additional health problems for patients, according to a new study. Researchers found that among people with strep throat symptoms, an i...

By Ben Hirschler LONDON | Tue Oct 23, 2012 10:53am EDT LONDON (Reuters) - Europe's drug regulator has started an infringement procedure against Switzerland's Roche to investigate its alleged failure to properly report tens of thousands of potential drug side effects. If found guilty, the world's biggest maker of cancer medicines could be fined up...

By Bill Berkrot Mon Oct 22, 2012 9:51pm EDT (Reuters) - The extended shutdown of a sister company of the pharmacy at the center of the deadly U.S. meningitis outbreak may exacerbate drug shortages for some hospitals and healthcare providers as the number of infection cases neared 300, U.S. health regulators said. Ameridose, a drug manufacturer owned by th...

By Martinne Geller and David Morgan NEW YORK/WASHINGTON | Mon Oct 22, 2012 8:37pm EDT NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Food and Drug Administration said on Monday that it was investigating reports of five deaths that may be associated with Monster Beverage Corp's namesake energy drink, and the company's shares fell more than 14 percent. Monste...

By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO | Mon Oct 22, 2012 5:56pm EDT CHICAGO (Reuters) - The risks of taking hormone therapy to prevent heart disease and osteoporosis in post menopausal women far outweigh the benefits and such treatment is not recommended, according to new guidelines from an influential panel of U.S. health advisers. The guidelines from th...

SAN JOSÉ, Costa Rica (Oct. 22, 2012) –Humane Society International- Latin America and the Servicio Nacional de Salud Animal (SENASA), the Costa Rican animal health service, celebrated the signing of an agreement to join together to work for improved animal welfare standards. “In recent years, SENASA has become increasingly involved in the fight against dogfighting, an activity which oftentimes ...

By Amy Norton NEW YORK | Mon Oct 22, 2012 5:03pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Most women can wait three to five years between Pap tests to screen for cervical cancer, according to guidelines released Monday by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). The recommendations fall in line with two separate sets of guidelines r...

By Frederik Joelving NEW YORK | Mon Oct 22, 2012 4:45pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Downing a cup of beans or lentils every day may help people with type 2 diabetes control their blood sugar and possibly reduce their risk of heart attacks and stroke, according to a small study out today. Researchers found that compared with a diet rich in who...

By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK | Mon Oct 22, 2012 4:44pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Possibly driven by a surge in painkiller abuse, the number of drug and alcohol problems diagnosed by U.S. doctors increased by 70 percent between 2001 and 2009, according to new research. "We know that increases in prescription drug use are a big part of what's...

By Frederik Joelving NEW YORK | Mon Oct 22, 2012 4:41pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women about to have breast cancer surgery may want to pay extra attention to the radiation treatment they could be offered afterward. A new study shows a new and increasingly popular treatment called brachytherapy is tied to more wound and skin complications t...

By Bill Berkrot Mon Oct 22, 2012 2:47pm EDT (Reuters) - The extended shutdown of a sister company of the pharmacy at the center of the deadly meningitis outbreak may exacerbate drug shortages for some hospitals and healthcare providers, health regulators said. Ameridose, a drug manufacturer owned by the same pe...

Mon Oct 22, 2012 2:31pm EDT (Reuters) - Monster Beverage Corp shares fell 10 percent on Monday after news that it is being sued by the family of a 14-year-old teenager who died after drinking two cans of its Monster Energy drink. The family of teenager Anais Fournier filed a lawsuit on Friday against Monster for failing to warn about the product's dangers.Accordi...

By Nick Zieminski NEW YORK | Mon Oct 22, 2012 1:42pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. corporate executives are more worried about providing healthcare benefits to their employees than about issues like wages, taxes or attracting qualified workers, according to a survey by the world's No. 1 staffing company, Adecco SA. In Adecco's poll of senior exec...

By Elias Biryabarema KAMPALA | Mon Oct 22, 2012 12:20pm EDT KAMPALA (Reuters) - An outbreak of the deadly Marburg virus in Uganda has spread to the capital Kampala after an infected woman travelled to the city and the death toll from the disease, a cousin of Ebola, climbed to five, a health official said on Monday. The latest outbreak of another ...

Mon Oct 22, 2012 11:53am EDT (Reuters) - Eli Lilly & Co's experimental once-weekly diabetes drug dulaglutide proved superior in late-stage clinical trials to three other widely used medicines that are dosed more frequently, the company said on Monday. Lilly said it aims to seek marketing approval for its injectable medicine in 2013, based on favorable data fr...

PARIS | Mon Oct 22, 2012 11:19am EDT PARIS (Reuters) - A study last month pointing to health risks from a type of genetically modified maize and a related pesticide did not provide grounds for questioning previous safety approvals, the French government said on Monday. The study by researchers at the University of Caen said rats fed on Monsanto's NK603 G...

By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK | Mon Oct 22, 2012 10:07am EDT NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A group of U.S. pediatricians on Monday recommended that cheerleading be designated an official sport, mainly to help prevent injuries, which the doctors say can be catastrophic. Some of the group's other recommendations include requiring cheerleaders to pass ...

By Kate Kelland, Health and Science Correspondent ATHENS | Mon Oct 22, 2012 9:35am EDT ATHENS (Reuters) - Just when it seems things couldn't get any worse for Greece, the exhausted and indebted country has a new threat to deal with: mosquito-borne diseases. Species of the blood-sucking insects that can carry exotic-sounding tropical infections li...

Mon Oct 22, 2012 8:44am EDT (Reuters) - Pfizer Inc said it would buy privately held-NextWave Pharmaceuticals for $255 million, gaining access to the company's attention deficit hyperactivity disorder drug, the first once-daily liquid medicine approved to treat the condition in the United States. NextWave's shareholders would also be eligible to get up to $425 mil...

Mon Oct 22, 2012 8:19am EDT (Reuters) - Supernus Pharmaceuticals Inc's experimental epilepsy drug Oxtellar XR won marketing approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the second drug approval for the company since it went public in May. Oxtellar XR's final marketing approval follows the tentative approval given in late-June to Supernus's Trokendi XR -- ...

WASHINGTON | Sat Oct 20, 2012 2:34pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. death toll from fungal meningitis linked to potentially contaminated steroid injections has risen to 23 with one new death each reported in Tennessee and North Carolina, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Saturday. States reported 13 new cases of fungal meningiti...

By Genevra Pittman NEW YORK | Sat Oct 20, 2012 10:37am EDT NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Boys in the United States may be entering puberty earlier than in generations past, a new study has found, suggesting it's not just girls who are developing at younger ages. In comparisons with decades-old data, boys who were seen for well-child visits between ...

 URUGUAY – October 19th, 2012 - In a 17-14 groundbreaking senate vote this week, Uruguay became the third nation in Latin America to decriminalize abortion, allowing a woman to request an abortion procedure during her first trimester without restriction as to reason. With the decision, Uruguay moves away from the current status quo in much of the region, where most countries only permit therapeuti...

October 17th, 2012 – Patients of the Monsenor Sanabria Hospital, in Puntarenas, are having a tough time getting used to the “new facilities.” The parking lot in which they used to park their cars is now the outpatient area. The hospital was one of the structures most damaged by the September 5th earthquake. Entrance to the now-empty medical tower is forbidden, so patients and staff have had to rel...

ROME | Fri Oct 19, 2012 6:29pm EDT ROME (Reuters) - Italy's supreme court has upheld a ruling that said there was a link between a business executive's brain tumor and his heavy mobile phone usage, potentially opening the door to further legal claims. The court's decision flies in the face of much scientific opinion, which generally says there is not eno...

By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK | Fri Oct 19, 2012 6:26pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - There may be several non-medical factors outside of hospitals' control that are linked to how heart and pneumonia patients fare once they're discharged, according to a fresh look at past research. Beginning October 1, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Servi...

By Ransdell Pierson Fri Oct 19, 2012 6:05pm EDT (Reuters) - Edwards Lifesciences Corp said U.S. health regulators widened the approved use of its Sapien artificial heart valve to include patients who are eligible for surgery but at high risk of serious surgical complications or death. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration also approved delivering the hear...

DETROIT | Fri Oct 19, 2012 5:13pm EDT DETROIT (Reuters) - A healthcare trust for retired U.S. autoworkers was $33 billion short of meeting obligations to cover medical costs of those retirees at the end of 2011, newly released federal documents show. The funding shortfall of $33 billion in the second year of the healthcare trust was 63 percent higher tha...

Fri Oct 19, 2012 5:00pm EDT (Reuters) - Test samples from the XL Foods meat plant in Alberta have come back negative for E. coli bacteria, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) said on Friday, moving closer to a decision on whether to reopen the plant, which the agency closed because some of the plant's beef products were contaminated. Inspection officials t...

By Genevra Pittman NEW YORK | Fri Oct 19, 2012 4:44pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Regardless of lifestyle and other health-related factors, heavier people were more likely than lean ones to be hospitalized for a variety of conditions in a new study from Australia. That was the case not just for obese people, but for the merely overweight as w...

By Amy Norton NEW YORK | Fri Oct 19, 2012 3:11pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The popular supplement saw palmetto may be safe for men with urinary symptoms, a new study finds - but whether it actually works is a whole other matter. Saw palmetto is a fruit extract that some men take for the symptoms of an enlarged prostate - like difficulty uri...

By Amy Norton NEW YORK | Fri Oct 19, 2012 1:40pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women younger than 70 have a relatively low risk of abnormal growths in the upper part of the colon, a new study confirms - suggesting, researchers say, that many women can opt for less invasive colon cancer screening. Most experts recommend that people at average ri...

Marking the fifth annual Global Handwashing Day on October 15, and approaching the second anniversary of the first case of reported cholera in Haiti in 2010, Partners in Health, Veolia Environment Foundation, Zanmi Lasante, and Catholic Relief Services became the newest members of the Regional Coalition on Water and Sanitation for the Elimination of Cholera in the Island of Hispaniola. The ...