Reuters Health News Summary
Following is a summary of current health news briefs.
Authorities confirm bird flu case in southern Belgium
Belgian health authorities said they confirmed a case of bird flu in southern Belgium concerning the highly contagious H5N8 virus, and established a 3 kilometer perimeter around the area where the transport of birds and eggs was forbidden. In the perimeter around the village of Wangenies, just outside of Charleroi, authorities also introduced a ban on feeding birds outside. The measures will stay in place for at least three weeks.
Facing revolt on healthcare bill, Senate Republicans delay vote
Facing a potentially disastrous defeat by members of his own party, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decided on Tuesday to delay a vote on healthcare legislation in order to get more support from Republican senators. President Donald Trump summoned all 52 Republican senators to the White House on Tuesday afternoon to discuss how to proceed.
AstraZeneca cancer drug trial prompts investors to take options cover
Investors in drugmaker AstraZeneca have taken defensive positions in the options market ahead of eagerly awaited results of a major trial of a lung cancer treatment, which are due any day now. The British group is hoping to secure a substantial slice of a multibillion-dollar market by proving its combination of two immunotherapy drugs, durvalumab and tremelimumab, can help previously untreated patients with advanced lung cancer.
Linde's Lincare settles U.S. whistleblower case for $20 million
Linde AG's Lincare unit has agreed to pay $20 million to resolve a whistleblower lawsuit accusing the company of fraudulently billing the U.S. government for oxygen and respiratory care equipment. The accord, confirmed by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Massachusetts, will resolve a lawsuit filed under the False Claims Act by former employees of the respiratory therapy services provider on behalf of the U.S. government.
WHO hopes Yemeni cholera outbreak is half done at 218,000 cases
A major cholera outbreak in Yemen may have reached the halfway mark at 218,798 cases as a massive emergency response has begun to curb its spread two months into the epidemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday. Two years into a devastating civil war between a Saudi-led coalition and Iran-aligned Houthi rebels, Yemen became a perfect breeding ground for the disease, which spreads by faeces getting into food or water and thrives in places with poor sanitation.
French ethics panel backs lesbian procreation help
Campaigners for lesbian motherhood got a significant boost in France on Tuesday when a panel of ethics specialists said that female couples and single women should be granted access to sperm-donor techniques of medically assisted reproduction. The recommendation from the National Consultative Committee on Ethics (CCNE) comes two months after President Emmanuel Macron promised to legislate on access to medically assisted procreation for lesbians if elected.
Can electroacupuncture decrease stress incontinence?
Acupuncture paired with mild electric currents may be better than doing nothing at all to relieve a common type of urinary incontinence in women, a Chinese study suggests. All of the 504 women in the study had stress incontinence, which happens when the pelvic muscles are too weak to prevent urinary leakage when women do things like cough, sneeze or exercise. Childbirth is a common reason for weak pelvic muscles and obesity makes the problem worse.
Merck heart drug surprises with positive result; questions linger
Merck & Co said on Tuesday its experimental cholesterol drug from a class with a history of consistent failure lowered deaths and heart attacks in a large trial, but the company has yet to decide whether to seek approval despite the surprise success. The drugmaker reported only that the drug, anacetrapib, met the main goal in the 4-year trial of about 30,000 high-risk heart patients already on cholesterol-lowering statins. It showed a statistically significant reduction in the combined risk of heart attacks, heart-related death and need for repeat artery-clearing procedures.
Vaccination may be curbing ER visits for shingles
Emergency room (ER) visits for shingles fell in the past decade for people aged 60 and older but rose for most younger age groups. The decrease among older people may be due to more of them getting the shingles vaccine, U.S. researchers suggest. Anyone who has had chicken pox or the chicken pox vaccine can develop shingles, but the risk increases sharply after age 50 and vaccination against the shingles-causing virus is recommended by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention starting at age 60.
California to list herbicide as cancer-causing; Monsanto vows fight
Glyphosate, an herbicide and the active ingredient in Monsanto Co's popular Roundup weed killer, will be added to California's list of chemicals known to cause cancer effective July 7, the state's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) said on Monday. Monsanto vowed to continue its legal fight against the designation, required under a state law known as Proposition 65, and called the decision "unwarranted on the basis of science and the law."
