Reuters Health News Summary
Following is a summary of current health news briefs.
Virus hits Australian women water polo team
Four members of the 'Aussie Stingers', Australia's women's Olympic water polo team, face 48 hours in medical isolation after suffering an attack of gastroenteritis on their way to Rio. The team of 13 players were due to land in Brazil on a delayed flight from Rome, where they had been training for the Games, later on Monday.
McDonald's to remove corn syrup from buns, curbs antibiotics in chicken
McDonald's Corp will replace corn syrup in hamburger buns with sugar this month and has removed antibiotics that are important to human medicine from its chicken months ahead of schedule, it said on Monday, moves that are part of its drive to target increasingly health-conscious consumers. The fast food company also said it eliminated artificial preservatives from Chicken McNuggets and several breakfast items, including scrambled eggs.
Fatty livers increase kids' risk of diabetes
(Reuters Health) - About seven million children in the U.S. have fatty livers, and nearly a third of those kids also have prediabetes or diabetes, according to a new study. So-called nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) "is one of the biggest risk factors for the development of type 2 diabetes in children," said Dr. Jeffrey B. Schwimmer, director of the Fatty Liver Clinic at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego.
Experimental vaccine could provide rapid response to diseases
A type of experimental vaccine that can be made in just a week and has protected mice against influenza, Ebola and Zika viruses may offer promise for quick responses to disease outbreaks in people, according to Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers. MIT scientists said their vaccines, still in early developmental stages, harness messenger RNA, a genetic material that can be programmed to fight any viral, bacterial or parasitic disease by provoking an amplified immune response in the body. The messenger RNA is put into a molecule that delivers it into cells to generate an immune response against a particular pathogen.
Florida travel warning issued for pregnant women after more Zika cases
U.S. health officials warned pregnant women to avoid traveling to a neighborhood in Miami on Monday after Florida said it had 10 more cases of Zika caused by the bite of local mosquitoes, bringing the total to 14. At the request of Gov. Rick Scott, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is sending in a special emergency response team of eight disease experts to assist Florida in its investigation.
GSK and Google parent forge $715 million bioelectronic medicines firm
GlaxoSmithKline and Google parent Alphabet's life sciences unit are creating a new company focused on fighting diseases by targeting electrical signals in the body, jump-starting a novel field of medicine called bioelectronics. Verily Life Sciences - known as Google's life sciences unit until last year - and Britain's biggest drugmaker will together contribute 540 million pounds ($715 million) over seven years to Galvani Bioelectronics, they said on Monday.
Theranos CEO faces critics, presents new product plans
The chief executive of embattled Theranos Inc on Monday presented plans for a new product and said the blood testing company was working diligently to rectify all of its outstanding issues involving its product and laboratory operations. CEO Elizabeth Holmes described new technologies that she said were "distinct from the operations of our clinical laboratories" that have come under scrutiny - part of a presentation before some 2,650 scientists at the American Association for Clinical Chemistry meeting in Philadelphia.
Regional coordination cuts time to heart attack treatment
(Reuters Health) - By coordinating emergency resources, an experimental U.S. program got more heart attack patients treated promptly, researchers say. Before the program started, 50 percent of people who showed up at hospitals got artery-opening therapy within the recommended window of time. The percentage increased to 55 percent after the program, researchers report.
Zika an excuse for top ranked players, says golfer Van Zyl
South African Jaco Van Zyl, who sat out the year's last major, the PGA Championship, to prepare for the Olympics, says the world's top-ranked golfers are using the Zika virus as an excuse to dodge the Rio Games. World number one Jason Day of Australia, American world number two Dustin Johnson and number three Jordan Spieth and fourth ranked Northern Irishman Rory McIlroy all removed their names from Olympic consideration citing the risk of contracting the Zika virus.
Express Scripts says Valeant, Lilly, Bristol drugs to lack coverage
Express Scripts Holding Co said on Monday it would add a handful of medicines in 2017 to its list of drugs that are excluded from insurance coverage, including treatments for arthritis and psoriasis, while several other medicines will be removed from the exclusion list. The nation's largest pharmacy benefit manager has been excluding medicines from its coverage list since 2014, citing concern about costs to its health insurers and corporate customers. The 2017 excluded medicines list will entail 85 drugs, it said, compared with 87 in 2016.
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