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G20 agriculture ministers reach deal aimed at addressing high food prices

"G20 farm ministers settled a deal on Thursday to tackle high food prices, agreeing to a watered-down declaration that fell short of France's ambitious proposals to tighten regulation of commodity markets," Reuters reports.

24 Jun 2011

Pfizer and Pain Therapeutics receive FDA Complete Response Letter for resubmission of REMOXY NDA

Pfizer and Pain Therapeutics, Inc. announced that a Complete Response Letter was received from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on the resubmission to the new drug application (NDA) for REMOXY® (oxycodone) Extended-Release Capsules CII. Pfizer is working to evaluate the issues described in the Complete Response Letter and plans to have further discussions with FDA around them.

24 Jun 2011

Breast milk is an incredible low-tech solution for infant malnutrition

In his latest New York Times column, Nicholas Kristof discusses the health benefits of breast milk for preventing childhood malnutrition. "When we think of global poverty, we sometimes assume that the challenges are so vast that any solutions must be extraordinarily complex and expensive.

24 Jun 2011

Epilepsy may arise from complex mixture of altered ion channels

Imagine two flat screen televisions tuned to the same channel and sitting side-by-side. From a distance, their pictures are virtually the same, however up close, you can see subtle variations in the pixels - one blurred here, another dropped out there.

24 Jun 2011

Protein globin E helps avian eyes 'breathe' and contributes to visual acuity

Say what you will about bird brains, but our feathered friends sure have us -- and all the other animals on the planet -- beat in the vision department, and that has a bit to do with how their brains develop.

24 Jun 2011

Arguments held in NJ Appeals Court over health law challenge

A federal appeals court hearing arguments Wednesday in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of last year's U.S. health reform law focused primarily on whether plaintiffs need to demonstrate they are suffering economic harm now or will when the part of the law mandating that everyone have health coverage takes effect.

24 Jun 2011

Maize-derived collagen has proline hydroxylation levels similar to human collagen

Synthetic collagen has a wide range of applications in reconstructive and cosmetic surgery and in the food industry. For proper function in animals a certain number of prolines within the protein need to be hydroxylated. BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Biotechnology reports that for the first time the α1 chain of type 1 collagen has been produced in maize with similar levels of proline hydroxylation to human collagen.

24 Jun 2011

ABA honors Acorda Therapeutics president with 2011 Stevie Award

Acorda Therapeutics, Inc. announced that Ron Cohen, M.D., President and CEO of Acorda Therapeutics, was awarded the 2011 Stevie Award for Executive of the Year in the Health Products & Services category at the 9th Annual American Business Awards (ABA) ceremony held on June 20, 2011.

24 Jun 2011

Mass. Attorney General says plan to curb health costs not working

Early results show that putting doctors and hospitals on a budget — a payment method promoted as a way to curb health costs — has not saved money in Massachusetts, Attorney General Martha Coakley concluded in a report released yesterday.

24 Jun 2011

Youngevity announces acquisition of R-Garden

Youngevity Essential Life Sciences, an international nutritional products company, announced its acquisition of R-Garden, Inc. The acquisition of R-Garden's Customers, Distributors, and Product Line expands Youngevity's already substantial "network cloud" of Distributors and Customers and their social networking reach.

24 Jun 2011

Discovery sheds new light on initiation of vision process

A discovery by a team of researchers led by a Syracuse University physicist sheds new light on how the vision process is initiated. For almost 50 years, scientists have believed that light signals could not be initiated unless special light-receptor molecules in the retinal cells first changed their shape in a process called isomerization.

24 Jun 2011

Leaky blood vessels may cause sepsis rather than a symptom: Research

Researchers at St. Michael's Hospital have put forward a new theory as to what causes sepsis, an often fatal condition that occurs when infection spreads throughout the body.

24 Jun 2011

Stresses can change gene expression without DNA sequence change

None of us are strangers to stress of various kinds. It turns out the effects of all those stresses can change the fate of future generation, influencing our very DNA without any change to the underlying sequence of As, Gs, Ts and Cs. Now, researchers reporting in the June 24th issue of Cell, a Cell Press publication, have new evidence that helps to explain just how these epigenetic changes really happen.

24 Jun 2011

Automated screening system helps identify cases of unexpected drug diversions

Electronic data from automated drug dispensing carts can help to identify drug diversion by anesthesia care providers, according to a report in the July issue of Anesthesia & Analgesia, official journal of the International Anesthesia Research Society.

24 Jun 2011

Diabetic neuropathy patients with wounds must protect themselves from pets

In a case study that illustrates the need for people with diabetes to be cautious of foot injuries and to protect themselves from pets, a woman with numbness in her feet caused by diabetic neuropathy slept through a traumatic episode in which her Jack Russell terrier chewed off part of her slightly infected big toe, according to an article published in this month's issue of the Journal of the American Podiatric Medical Association.

24 Jun 2011

Find a better way to incorporate evidence into health policy

"Research evidence has undoubtedly been crucial in formulating countless global health policies which have saved many millions of lives," but "at the same time, we believe there are several common fallacies about its 'real world' application," Gavin Yamey and Richard Feachem of the Evidence to Policy initiative write in an Evidence-Based Medicine perspective.

24 Jun 2011

ViroPharma receives positive European CHMP opinion for Buccolam to treat acute seizures

ViroPharma Incorporated today announced that the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has adopted a positive opinion recommending approval of a Pediatric Use Marketing Authorization (PUMA) for Buccolam, for treatment of prolonged, acute, convulsive seizures in infants, toddlers, children and adolescents, from 3 months to less than 18 years.

24 Jun 2011

SweetSpot registers Diabetes Device Data Transfer service as MDDS with FDA

SweetSpot Diabetes Care, Inc. has registered their Diabetes Device Data Transfer service as a Medical Device Data System (MDDS) with the FDA the Company announced today, while attending the 71st Annual American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions meeting in San Diego, CA.

24 Jun 2011

Ashoka and Boehringer Ingelheim initiative to promote health

The social entrepreneurial organization Ashoka and pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim on Tuesday announced they are launching a three-year global initiative aimed at "promoting healthy individuals, families and communities by identifying and supporting the most promising solutions to challenging health problems," according to an Ashoka press release.

24 Jun 2011

Low-risk patients with pulmonary embolism can benefit from outpatient care

Outpatient care for certain low-risk patients with pulmonary embolism (PE) can be safely and effectively used in place of inpatient care, according to a randomized, multi-center study in 19 emergency departments.

24 Jun 2011