Antidepressants don’t raise stillbirth risk: study

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Taking common antidepressants during pregnancy doesn’t increase a woman’s risk of having a stillbirth, according to a new study of over one million Nordic women.The drugs, known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, include fluoxetine (marketed as Prozac) and citalopram (Celexa).Earlier studies have tied SSRIs to a slightly higher rate of some kinds of birth...

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Biden will discuss “fiscal cliff” deal with House Democrats

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Vice President Joe Biden will meet with fellow Democrats in the House of Representatives on Tuesday to discuss the “fiscal cliff” deal that he forged with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, a Democratic aide said.The meeting is to be held at the Capitol at 12:15 p.m. ET (1715 GMT).Biden needed to help sell Senate Democrats on the deal before they joined Republicans at...

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Palestinians say 9 dead from swine flu outbreak

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — A Palestinian health official says an outbreak swine flu has killed nine people.Deputy Health Minister Asad Ramlawi also said Monday more than 225 people have been infected by the H1N1 influenza strain, known as swine flu. He said more than 25,000 vaccinations have been administered this year to prevent it. The West Bank has 2.5 million residents.The West Bank has been struck...

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Italian Nobel scientist Montalcini dies at 103

ROME (Reuters) – Rita Levi Montalcini, joint winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine and an Italian Senator for Life, died on Sunday at the age of 103, her family said.The first Nobel laureate to reach 100 years of age, she won the prize in 1986 with American Stanley Cohen for their discovery of nerve growth factor (NGF), a protein that makes developing cells grow by stimulating surrounding nerve tissue.Her...

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Brazil president, cancer survivor, pronounced healthy

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who survived lymphoma cancer in 2009, was pronounced healthy by doctors after a routine exam on Friday.Rousseff’s health was “within normal levels,” according to a statement released by her office following the check-up at the Sirio-Libanes Hospital in Sao Paulo, one of South America‘s leading cancer treatment centers.Rousseff underwent chemotherapy...

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Cancer Sucks to donate $150,000 to cancer research

It will be the largest single donation given by Cancer Sucks, stated the organization’s executive director, Rick Horton, in a recent release.Cancer Sucks, which will be the recipient of funds raised from the upcoming The Party! New Year’s Eve event in Tulsa’s Blue Dome District, will be donating proceeds from the Shiprocked Music Cruise charity auction, as well as the John F. Henry PanSlam Golf Classic...

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Study finds spiritual care still rare at end of life

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Physicians and nurses at four Boston medical centers cited a lack of training to explain why they rarely provide spiritual care for terminally ill cancer patients – although most considered it an important part of treatment at the end of life.“I was quite surprised that it was really just lack of training that dominated the reasons why,” senior author Dr. Tracy Balboni,...

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‘Bumping’ Your Way to Safer Sex With a Smartphone App

Reported by Dr. Lauren Browne:Let’s face it.  Teens have sex.  Parents may choose to ignore it, and teens may choose to deny it, but almost 50 percent of American high school students are having sex, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. And each year, millions of those sexually active teens contract sexually transmitted diseases such as chlamydia, gonorrhea,...

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12 Weeks is a Long Time to Wait for Breast Cancer Chemotherapy

FIRST PERSON | How long a wait is too long when it comes to treatment of breast cancer? A report published in the Dec. 19 issue of JNCI, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, states that after examining records from 6,622 women, the average time for a woman to wait for adjuvant chemotherapy (chemo given after surgery) for breast cancer is 12 weeks. After my surgery, I waited four weeks before...

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Former President George H.W. Bush remains hospitalized

(Reuters) – Former President George H.W. Bush, who has been hospitalized for a month undergoing treatment for bronchitis, may not be released from a Houston hospital in time to celebrate Christmas at home as doctors had hoped.Bush, 88, remained in stable condition and doctors were optimistic he would make a full recovery, George Kovacik, a spokesman at Methodist Hospital, said in an emailed statement...

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Bieber’s Hamster Giveaway Causes Furry Furor

Justin Bieber bonds with his former pet, Pac-the-hamster. Image credit: Twitter @PacBieber.Here’s a story that will give you paws. Or at least it has paws.According to TMZ, Justin Bieber gave an unsuspecting fan an early Christmas present by unloading his pet hamster, named PAC, on her during a recent concert.“That’s all you,” Bieber can be heard shouting to the girl over the screams of the crowd...

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FDA approves Roche’s Tamiflu for infants with new flu symptoms

(Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday expanded the use of Tamiflu, the flu drug from Roche, to children as young as two weeks old who have shown flu symptoms for no more than two days.The FDA said the drug cannot be used to prevent flu infection in this age group. The drug is currently approved as both a flu treatment and preventative flu drug for children ages 1 and older, and...

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AP IMPACT: Steroids loom in major-college football

WASHINGTON (AP) — With steroids easy to buy, testing weak and punishments inconsistent, college football players are packing on significant weight — 30 pounds or more in a single year, sometimes — without drawing much attention from their schools or the NCAA in a sport that earns tens of billions of dollars for teams.Rules vary so widely that, on any given game day, a team with a strict no-steroid...

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Drugs group Lundbeck’s shares hit by profit warning

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – Shares in Danish drugs firm Lundbeck fell to their lowest level in over 12 years on Wednesday after it cut its profits forecast for the next two years as European sales slow and spending on new products rise to combat generic competition.The company has already warned that earnings would stall until 2015 due to cheap generic competition for its existing drugs, meaning new products...

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Merck, GE to collaborate on Alzheimer’s drug development

(Reuters) – Merck & Co and General Electric Co‘s healthcare unit have agreed to collaborate on an experimental drug for Alzheimer’s disease, the companies said on Tuesday.GE Healthcare will supply Flutemetamol, an investigational imaging agent, to Merck for use with its experimental Alzheimer’s disease drug MK-8931.The companies hope GE’s imaging agent will help identify patients who might benefit...

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Vivalis to buy Intercell in European biotech merger

LONDON/PARIS (Reuters) – France‘s Vivalis and Austrian vaccine specialist Intercell are linking up in a rare cross-border deal that shows the need for Europe’s fledgling biotech companies to grow in scale and produce a stronger pipeline to better compete in the quest for lucrative partnership deals.Vivalis is set to buy Intercell in a deal valuing the Austrian vaccine maker at around 133 million euros...

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S.Africa’s Mandela had gallstones removed, recovering: government

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Nelson Mandela, the 94-year-old former South African president and Nobel Peace laureate hospitalised with a lung infection, has successfully undergone a procedure to have gallstones removed, the government said on Saturday.“The former president underwent a procedure via endoscopy to have gallstones removed. The procedure was successful and Madiba is recovering,” President...

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School murders silence “cliff” rhetoric as deadline nears

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Mass murder in Connecticut silenced “fiscal cliff” talk on Saturday as the White House and Congress quietly got ready for a final scramble to avert the tax hikes and spending cuts set for the New Year, with sessions of the U.S. House of Representatives now scheduled just days before Christmas.President Barack Obama canceled a trip he had planned to make next Wednesday to Portland,...

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U.S. to finalize stricter soot standards on Friday

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration will finalize stronger limits on harmful soot pollution from power plants and diesel engines on Friday, two health groups said.The new standards, which the Environmental Protection Agency was under court order to finalize, will limit annual average soot emissions to about 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air from the standard of 15 micrograms set in...

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In challenge to personalized cancer care, DNA isn’t all-powerful

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The cancer cells were not behaving the way the textbooks say they should. Some of the cells in colonies that were started with colorectal tumor cells were propagating like mad; others were hardly multiplying. Some were dropping dead from chemotherapy and others were no more slowed by the drug than is a tsunami by a tissue. Yet the cells in each “clone” all had identical genomes,...

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