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Shortages of anti-infective drugs can put patients at risk and alter clinical care

Shortages of key drugs used to fight infections represent a public health emergency and can put patients at risk, according to a review published in Clinical Infectious Diseases and available online.

20 Jan 2012

EMA CHMP may issue an opinion on CTI's Pixuvri MAA in mid-Feb.

Cell Therapeutics, Inc. ("CTI") announced today that, following discussions with the European Medicines Agency's ("EMA") Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use ("CHMP"), the CHMP may issue an opinion on CTI's Marketing Authorization Application ("MAA") for Pixuvri in mid-February.

20 Jan 2012

Longer looks: Explaining Medicare's 'premium support'

Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration convened a committee of medical experts to weigh new evidence concerning the potential dangers of drospirenone, a synthetic hormone contained in popular birth control pills including Bayer AG's Yaz and Yasmin. ... the committee concluded by a four-vote margin that the benefits of drugs with drospirenone outweigh the risks.

20 Jan 2012

External stimuli control hormonal regulation of our eating behavior

Max Planck researchers have proven something scientifically for the first time that laypeople have always known: the mere sight of delicious food stimulates the appetite. A study on healthy young men has documented that the amount of the neurosecretory protein hormone ghrelin in the blood increases as a result of visual stimulation through images of food.

20 Jan 2012

Roundup: State lawmakers urge deficit reduction

On Wednesday, the National Conference of State Legislatures, which represents lawmakers from across the country, sent President Barack Obama, Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid a letter urging them to "examine all possible avenues for deficit reduction, including discretionary spending, entitlement reform and revenue-related options."

20 Jan 2012

Distal-less gene plays a critical role in development of fruit fly olfactory system

Fruit flies don't have noses, but a huge part of their brains is dedicated to processing smells. Flies probably rely on the sense of smell more than any other sense for essential activities such as finding mates and avoiding danger. UW-Madison researchers have discovered that a gene called distal-less is critical to the fly's ability to receive, process and respond to smells.

20 Jan 2012

Positive economic outcomes of paid family leave for workers

With a growing need for family-friendly workplace policies, a new study commissioned by the National Partnership for Women & Families, with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, concludes that providing paid family leave to workers leads to positive economic outcomes for working families, businesses and the public.

20 Jan 2012

Quebec ban on junk-food ads more effective in reducing childhood obesity

With mounting concerns over childhood obesity and its associated health risks in the U.S., would a ban on junk-food advertising aimed at children be more effective than the current voluntary, industry-led ban? According to published research from a University of Illinois economist, advertising bans do work, but an outright ban covering the entire U.S. media market would be the most effective policy tool for reducing fast-food consumption in children.

20 Jan 2012

New federal drug label recommendations for CKD patients

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently recommended that clinicians be more conservative when they prescribe chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients with drugs that treat red blood cell deficiencies. But the drug label's recommendations fall short, according to two commentaries appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society Nephrology.

20 Jan 2012

Lives lost in Horn of Africa because of late response to famine early warnings, report says

"Scientists and aid organizations gave the world plenty of time to prepare, but a late response by the world's donor nations cost 50,000 to 100,000 lives during last year's drought in the Horn of Africa region," the Christian Science Monitor's "Global News Blog" writes about a report released on Wednesday by Save the Children and Oxfam.

20 Jan 2012

Mylan introduces Levetiracetam to treat seizures

Mylan Inc. today announced that its Mylan Institutional business has launched Levetiracetam in Sodium Chloride Injection, 500 mg/100 mL, 1000 mg/100 mL and 1500 mg/100 mL, for intravenous use.

19 Jan 2012

FDA issues complete response letter to Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca's dapagliflozin

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company and AstraZeneca today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a complete response letter regarding the New Drug Application (NDA) for investigational compound dapagliflozin for the treatment of type 2 diabetes in adults.

19 Jan 2012

Experimental drug helps patients with advanced colon cancer

According to results from a new clinical trial, an experimental cancer drug regorafenib appears to extend survival slightly in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. Regorafenib is a so-called multikinase inhibitor, which targets several of the ways cancer develops and grows, researchers said.

19 Jan 2012

U.S. Ambassador to U.N. warns of potential for famine in Sudan

"The United States and Sudan traded accusations [on Tuesday] over the humanitarian situation in the [border] states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan, embattled since the north and south of Sudan split into two nations last summer," the New York Times reports (MacFarquhar, 1/17).

19 Jan 2012

Plate size does not help to curb energy intake or control portion sizes

The size of one's dinner plate does not help to curb energy intake or control portion sizes, according to a recent study conducted at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth.

19 Jan 2012

Mephedrone users would switch to a new legal high if it caused less harm

Since mephedrone was made illegal in the UK in 2010, the street price of the drug has risen while the quality has degraded, which in turn may have reduced use of the drug. New research published online today reveals that young people who continued to use mephedrone after it became illegal would switch to a new legal high if it were pure and rated highly by their friends or on the Internet.

19 Jan 2012

FDA, pharmaceutical industry reach agreement on user-fee plan for generics

The Food and Drug Administration would collect hundreds of millions of dollars in new fees from pharmaceutical companies to help speed up the review of generic drugs, under an agreement with the industry released by the agency on Friday.

19 Jan 2012

Insufficient sleep increases risk of becoming overweight

New research from Uppsala University, Sweden, shows that a specific brain region that contributes to a person's appetite sensation is more activated in response to food images after one night of sleep loss than after one night of normal sleep. Poor sleep habits can therefore affect people's risk of becoming overweight in the long run. The findings are published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

19 Jan 2012

U.S. ambassador to U.N. food agencies, Ertharin Cousin, appointed to head WFP

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva on Tuesday announced the appointment of Ertharin Cousin, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N.'s Rome-based food agencies, to head the U.N. World Food Programme, the Associated Press/CBS News reports.

19 Jan 2012

Workers in newly renovated office buildings may receive higher doses of PFCs

In a first-of-its-kind study, scientists are reporting that the indoor air in offices is an important source of worker exposure to potentially toxic substances released by carpeting, furniture, paint and other items. Their report, which documents a link between levels of these so-called polyfluorinated compounds (PFCs) in office air and in the blood of workers, appears in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology.

19 Jan 2012