New cancer therapy comes of age, cost a 'toxic' side effect

Posted on Tuesday, September 30, 2014


New cancer therapy comes of age, cost a 'toxic' side effect

By Ben Hirschler MADRID (Reuters) - A raft of new cancer drugs promise better, longer-lasting treatments with fewer adverse side effects -- but their high cost is a growing concern. Drugs that help the body's own immune cells fight tumors are expected to be used in multi-drug cocktails, pushing the price of therapies costing more than $100,000 a year even higher. At the same time, other expensive medicines are being combined to produce impressive results fighting diseases including breast and skin cancer. ...

Steroid-fattened cows spark health fears in Bangladesh on Eid

A Bangladeshi workers grooms a cow at the Gabtoli cattle market in Dhaka on September 30, 2014, ahead of Eid-al Adha, the feast of the sacrificeDhaka (AFP) - Bangladesh sent medical teams on Tuesday to check millions of cows set for slaughter due to fears they have been pumped with banned steroids for fattening ahead of the Eid holiday.



New cancer therapy comes of age, cost a 'toxic' side effect

By Ben Hirschler MADRID (Reuters) - A raft of new cancer drugs promise better, longer-lasting treatments with fewer adverse side effects -- but their high cost is a growing concern. Drugs that help the body's own immune cells fight tumors are expected to be used in multi-drug cocktails, pushing the price of therapies costing more than $100,000 a year even higher. At the same time, other expensive medicines are being combined to produce impressive results fighting diseases including breast and skin cancer. ...

Children of Ebola dead shunned by families: UNICEF

Children walk past a slogan painted on a wall reading "Ebola" in Monrovia on August 31, 2014Dakar (AFP) - Thousands of children who have lost parents to the west African Ebola epidemic risk are being shunned by frightened and suspicious relatives, the UN children's fund said on Tuesday.



NFL TV ratings on the rise despite domestic violence fumble

NFL: Preseason-Baltimore Ravens at Dallas CowboysBy Eric Kelsey LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Americans are tuning into NFL football in greater numbers than last year, according to early season viewership figures, signaling the league's fumbled handling of domestic violence cases has not dented its overall popularity. Through the first three weeks of the season, audiences watching nationally televised primetime broadcasts have risen and nearly all networks have seen an uptick in viewership so far this season. ...



Families wait in agony for word on Ebola patients

In this picture taken Sunday, Sept. 28, 2014, Julius Prout, 32, poses for a photograph in front of the St Paul Bridge community clinic where he works in Monrovia, Liberia. Falling victim to the Ebola virus after treating more than a dozen others infected, following a traditional funeral, Prout was wrongly declared dead, prompting family members to hold two wakes in his memory. A registered nurse, Prout stunned relative when he called them after recovering from the deadly disease. Prout is now back in his neighborhood, immune from Ebola and eager to help other victims. As the death toll from Ebola soars, crowded clinics are turning over beds as quickly as patients are dying. This leaves social workers and psychologists struggling to keep pace and notify families, who must wait outside for fear of contagion. Also, under a government decree, all Ebola victims must be cremated, leaving families in unbearable pain with no chance for goodbye, no body to bury. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — First the ring tone echoed outside the barbed-wire-topped walls of the Ebola clinic. Then came the wails of grief, as news spread that 31-year-old Rose Johnson was dead just days after she was brought here unconscious by relatives.



India's Modi must resist U.S. pressure on drug patents: MSF

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, during his visit to the United StatesBy Nita Bhalla NEW DELHI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi must not give in to U.S. pressure to change intellectual property laws which allow India to produce generic medicines poor people can afford, the medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said. Modi, who is visiting the United States to bolster trade and investment ties, has been meeting senior Congressmen and business leaders. He met President Barack Obama at a White House dinner on Monday and the two will hold further talks on Tuesday. MSF said U.S. ...



US Ebola labs, parts for clinic arrive in Liberia

An Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) employee walks past drying safety boots at MSF's Ebola isolation and treatment center, in Monrovia, Liberia, Monday Sept. 29, 2014. Six months into the world’s worst-ever Ebola outbreak in West Africa authorities are desperately waiting for shipments of aid to help in the fight of this deadly disease. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — U.S. mobile Ebola labs should be up and running in Liberia this week, and American troops have broken ground for a field hospital, as the international community races to increase the ability to care for the spiraling number of people infected with the dreaded disease.



Johnson & Johnson buying Alios for $1.75B

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. (AP) — Johnson & Johnson is buying the biopharmaceutical company Alios BioPharma Inc. for about $1.75 billion.

France uses tax to put pressure on hepatitis C drug prices

Alton speaks with the media during a news conference in New DelhiBy Natalie Huet PARIS (Reuters) - France will tax drugmakers whose costly hepatitis C drugs threaten to throw off course its healthcare budget, the government has said, heaping pressure on pharmaceutical companies like Gilead Sciences to cut their prices. The Socialist government said it had designed a "progressive contribution scheme" ensuring all patients can access new and more effective treatments against the liver-destroying virus, while limiting the burden of these drugs on state finances. ...







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