Reuters Health News Summary

08/12/2016 8:57

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

Email campaign asks McDonald's to take U.S. antibiotic curbs global

A charity looking to fight the rise of dangerous, drug-resistant bacteria on Thursday asked the public to help convince McDonald's restaurants around the world to stop serving meat and milk from animals raised with routine use of medically important antibiotics. A week after the world's biggest fast-food company took that step with poultry at its U.S. restaurants, U.K.-based ShareAction launched an online campaign enabling people to email McDonald's Corp CEO Steve Easterbrook.

U.S. House Democrats' Pelosi: administration may shift funds for Zika

U.S. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said the Obama administration may announce as early as Thursday that it is shifting more money into fighting the Zika virus. "Maybe today or tomorrow," Pelosi told reporters in a hallway on Thursday. She did not give an amount, but said, "I think they are going to try to do it a piece at a time, hoping that something else will happen," an apparent reference to the administration's request that the Republican-led Congress approve a funding bill to combat the virus.

Canada to allow medical patients to grow own cannabis

Medical marijuana patients in Canada will be allowed to grow a limited amount of cannabis for their own use or designate someone to grow it for them, the government said on Thursday. The government had been given six months to comply with a federal court ruling that struck down the previous administration's ban on medical patients' growing cannabis.

DEA denies petition to reclassify marijuana: Federal Register

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on Thursday denied requests to loosen the classification of marijuana as a dangerous drug with no medical use. The Department of Health and Human Services "concluded that marijuana has a high potential for abuse, has no accepted medical use in the United States, and lacks an acceptable level of safety for use even under medical supervision," the DEA said in a letter on the issue.

Electronic Marlboro sucks Japanese smokers away from Japan Tobacco

Marlboro maker Philip Morris International says its e-cigarette has rapidly captured close to 3 percent of Japanese tobacco sales, making inroads into a market Japan Tobacco (JT) relies on for 40 percent of its profit. In what may be an early vindication of Philip Morris's e-cigarette strategy, the iQOS accounted for 2.2 percent of Japan's tobacco sales in the quarter ended June 30, a company spokesman said.

Novartis says bribe allegations in Turkey groundless, matter closed

Swiss drugmaker Novartis said it was not under investigation over bribery allegations in Turkey and that it considered the matter closed. "Based on thorough internal and external counsel investigations we have concluded that all recent publicly and anonymously reported allegations relating to Novartis Turkey are unsubstantiated. We are not aware of any government authority investigating Novartis. We now consider this matter closed," it said in an emailed statement on Friday.

AstraZeneca wins UK cost approval for longer use of heart drug

Long term use of AstraZeneca's blood thinner Brilinta has been recommended as a cost-effective option for treating patients after a heart attack, Britain's healthcare cost watchdog NICE said on Friday. Ticagrelor 60 mg -- sold in Britain as Brilique for just under 1 pound ($1.30) a pill -- could help "many thousands of people" when given twice a day alongside aspirin, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) said.

Many children's heart health not up to standards

Babies are generally born with healthy hearts that should be cared for during childhood to ensure good health later in life, according to the American Heart Association. Yet many U.S. children don't meet seven basic standards of good heart health, the AHA says in a statement in the journal Circulation.

Gilead to get attorney fees in hepatitis C patent fight with Merck

Gilead Sciences Inc is entitled to receive the attorney fees it incurred related to hepatitis C patent litigation with drugmaker Merck & Co Inc, a U.S. district judge has ruled. In June, Gilead was freed from paying up $200 million in damages for infringing two Merck patents related to Gilead's blockbuster drugs Sovaldi and Harvoni, after a U.S. judge found a pattern of misconduct by Merck including lying under oath and other unethical practices.

U.S. government shifts $81 million to Zika vaccine research

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has shifted $81 million in funds from other projects to continue work on developing vaccines to fight Zika in the absence of any funding from U.S. lawmakers. In a letter addressed to Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat and minority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell said she was allocating $34 million in funding to the National Institutes of Health and $47 million to the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to work on Zika vaccines.

08/12/2016 8:57