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Sebelius overturns FDA on morning after pill access

The Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius this Wednesday has overturned the Food and Drug Administration's plan to remove the age limit on who can buy Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd's Plan B One-Step pill – commonly known as the “morning after pill” without a prescription.

8 Dec 2011

First Edition: December 8, 2011

In today's headlines, reports about the HHS decision on the Plan B morning after pill, as well as the latest progress reports from Capitol Hill on the payroll tax break extension and the doc fix.

8 Dec 2011

Pending budget cuts could jeopardize health, safety of state's most vulnerable seniors

California's low-income seniors with disabilities are struggling to remain in their homes as public funding for long-term care services shrinks and may be slashed even further, according to a new study by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research conducted with support from The SCAN Foundation.

8 Dec 2011

BPA found in 94% of thermal cash register receipts

The latest episode in the American Chemical Society's (ACS) award-winning "Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions" podcast series discusses the discovery of bisphenol A (BPA) in 94 percent of thermal cash register receipts and describes how recycling of those receipts spreads BPA to paper napkins, toilet paper and other paper products.

8 Dec 2011

Mystery of unpleasant tough texture in vegetable oil-cooked hot dogs

In part of an effort to replace animal fat in hot dogs, sausages, hamburgers and other foods with healthier fat, scientists are reporting an advance in solving the mystery of why hot dogs develop an unpleasant tough texture when vegetable oils pinch hit for animal fat. A report on their study appears in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

8 Dec 2011

Recommendations to address challenges associated with chronic inflammatory diseases

A dramatic increase in the incidence of chronic inflammatory diseases such as asthma, allergy, and irritable bowel syndrome, has led to concern about how modern lifestyles may trigger physiological defense mechanisms.

8 Dec 2011

Women face disproportionately high risks from climate change, UNEP report says

"Women, particularly those living in mountain regions in developing countries, are facing disproportionately high risks to their livelihoods and health from climate change, as well as associated risks such as human trafficking, according to a new report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)," released at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa, the UNEP News Centre reports.

8 Dec 2011

H. pylori bacterium produces urease to neutralize gastric acid

A research team led by scientists at the Chinese University of Hong Kong is releasing study results this week showing how a bacterium, Helicobacter pylori, that causes more than half of peptic ulcers worldwide and that has been implicated in stomach cancer has managed for eons to turn the acidic environment of the human gut into one in which it can thrive.

8 Dec 2011

NIH, EPA and FDA collaborate to move science forward

A high-speed robotic screening system, aimed at protecting human health by improving how chemicals are tested in the United States, begins today to test 10,000 compounds for potential toxicity. The compounds cover a wide variety of classifications, and include consumer products, food additives, chemicals found in industrial processes, and human and veterinary drugs.

8 Dec 2011

Court considers health care execs' liability

After decades in relative obscurity, a U.S. legal doctrine that holds corporate officers liable for company wrongdoing is finding its way back into some high-profile health care prosecutions.

8 Dec 2011

Cedars-Sinai neurosurgeon seals off wide-neck aneurysm with new device

As Stephanie Weiss was coming to grips with the news she had two large and three small aneurysms in her brain, the Los Angeles independent travel consultant was told there was no minimally invasive way to treat at least one of the defects: a wide-neck aneurysm. She would have to undergo open-brain surgery.

8 Dec 2011

Horn of Africa food crisis could last into summer 2012, E.U. Aid Commissioner says

"The crisis in the Horn of Africa, which has left more than 13 million people at risk of starvation, will continue into the spring, and possibly the summer," European Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva said Tuesday, Reuters reports.

8 Dec 2011

New ways to treat overeating in children and adults

Overeating, whether in children or adults, often takes place even in the absence of hunger, resulting in weight gain and obesity. Current methods to treat such overeating in youth focus on therapies that restrict what kids may eat, requiring them to track their food intake and engage in intensive exercise.

8 Dec 2011

HHS: Plan B access will stay limited

The Department of Health and Human Services announced today that the morning-after pill, known as Plan B, will continue to be kept behind the pharmacy counter and girls younger than 17 will continue to need a prescription to obtain it.

8 Dec 2011

Women & Infants the first to offer digital breast tomosynthesis in southeastern New England

There is still a one in eight lifetime risk that a woman will develop breast cancer, and the best tool against the disease remains early detection. Now, Women & infants Hospital of Rhode Island has taken the breast cancer battle to the next level with the installation of the most advanced imaging technology available, called digital breast tomosynthesis.

8 Dec 2011

Positive results from Genentech's pertuzumab plus Herceptin Phase III study on HER2-positive mBC

Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, today announced results from CLEOPATRA, the first randomized Phase III study of the investigational HER2-targeted medicine pertuzumab.

8 Dec 2011

Are parents and pediatricians turning a blind eye to their kids’ weight gain?

Childhood obesity is fast becoming a major problem in the United States. However a new study shows that parents, pediatricians and even nursery schools or kindergartens have not really paid the attention the problem needs.

7 Dec 2011

Arsenic in rice worrisome

Studies have shown that rice takes up more arsenic from soil than other crops. Now a new study shows that higher arsenic levels are ingested by women who eat as little as half a cup of cooked rice in a day. Currently, there are no limits on the amount of allowable arsenic in rice in the United States. But the Environmental Protection Agency has set arsenic limits in water of 10 parts per billion.

7 Dec 2011

FDA approves changes to REMS for Nplate and Promacta

The approval of changes to the Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies (REMS) for both Nplate (romiplostim) and Promacta (eltrombopag) was announced by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

7 Dec 2011

Kenyans affected by flooding in need of humanitarian, medical aid

Heavy rains and flooding in Kenya, which have affected more than 40,000 people and caused at least a dozen deaths, are "complicating efforts to reach thousands of people made homeless by the flooding, an official of the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) told IRIN."

7 Dec 2011