By Lawrence Hurley WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday prohibited patents on naturally occurring human genes but allowed legal protections on synthetically produced genetic material in a compromise ruling hailed as a partial victory for patients and the biotechnology industry. The ruling by the nine justices, the first of its kind [...]
By Karen Freifeld and Bernard Vaughan NEW YORK (Reuters) – A U.S. district court judge on Wednesday approved a U.S. Food and Drug Administration plan to allow unrestricted sales of Plan B One-Step, a one-pill version of the emergency contraception drug. Judge Edward Korman of the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York, said the [...]
By Caroline Humer and Jessica Dye NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Obama administration will scrap age restrictions on the sale of emergency contraception pills, making the morning-after pill available to women and girls without a prescription. The U.S. Department of Justice said in a letter on Monday that it would comply with a court’s ruling [...]
MARSEILLE/PARIS (Reuters) – French police are investigating the death of a 92-year-old man as "suspicious" after he was given medicine that may have been wrongly labeled as a diuretic drug, a police representative said on Sunday. The man’s death on Saturday was two days after France’s pharmaceutical watchdog ANSM asked pharmacies to take off the [...]
By Roberta Rampton WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will highlight the issues faced by Americans with mental health problems at a White House conference on Monday, following his promise to start a "national conversation" on the subject after the shooting deaths of 20 children and six adults at a school last year. The massacre [...]
By Hamid Shalizi and Rafiq Sherzad JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Insurgents attacked the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad on Wednesday, killing an Afghan guard in the second major assault on a humanitarian organization in less than a week. Seven staff members, believed to be the total [...]
By Ben Hirschler LONDON (Reuters) – AstraZeneca is to buy Omthera Pharmaceuticals for as much as $443 million to build up its cardiovascular drug business, a priority area for Britain’s second-biggest drugmaker. The acquisition of the U.S.-based specialist in fish oil-derived medicine underscores a drive by new Chief Executive Pascal Soriot to revive AstraZeneca’s fortunes [...]
By Thomas Ferraro WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The biggest overhaul of U.S. immigration laws in a generation won bipartisan approval from a powerful U.S. Senate committee last week, but there is a strong chance that Republicans in the House of Representatives will end up killing it. The problem: House Republicans are far from convinced by arguments [...]
By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) – The H7N9 virus appears to have been brought under control in China largely due to restrictions at bird markets, but caused some $6.5 billion in losses to the economy, U.N. experts said on Tuesday. Health authorities worldwide must be on the lookout to detect the virus, the experts said, [...]
By David Morgan WASHINGTON (Reuters) – With the White House already reeling from three major controversies, some Republican lawmakers are zeroing in on what they perceive is another possible scandal tied to President Barack Obama’s landmark health reform law just as it nears implementation. On top of the troubles the administration is facing over its [...]
