Monday, Dec 15th
Last update10:21:52 AM GMT
Health Glance
The government set its first radiation safety standards for fish Tuesday after Japan's tsunami-ravaged nuclear plant reported radioactive contamination in nearby seawater measuring at several million times the legal limit.
The new levels coupled with reports that radiation was building up in fish led the government to create an acceptable radiation standard for fish for the first time. Some fish caught Friday off Japan's coastal waters would have exceeded the new provisional limit.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission and Key Baby LLC have announced a voluntary recall of about 29,000 Pampers Natural Stages Infant Ortho and Bulb Pacifiers because the 'pacifiers fail to meet federal safety standards and pose a choking hazard to young children.'
Specifically, Key Baby states that the width of the back plate of the pacifier doesn't meet standards on some of the pacifiers.
Antidepressants may narrow the arteries of middle-aged men, potentially putting them at risk for heart attacks and stroke, researchers said.
A study involving 513 male twins, with an average age of 55, found those who took medications like Forest Laboratories Inc. (FRX)’s Lexapro, Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY)’s Cymbalta or Pfizer Inc. (PFE)’s Zoloft had thicker blood vessel walls. The increase, a measure of fatty-plaque buildup linked to atherosclerosis, was seen regardless of what type of antidepressant the men were taking.
The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday disputed a drug company’s claim that pharmacies can no longer produce less expensive versions of a drug long used to reduce the risk that women will give birth prematurely.
The statement was aimed at defusing a controversy that erupted after the agency approved the drug Makena to prevent preterm births. Makena’s owner, KV Pharmaceutical of St. Louis, is charging $1,500 a dose for the drug. The same compound had been available for years for about $10 to $20 a dose.
Smokers face an increased risk of certain types of throat and stomach cancers, even years after they quit, a new study finds.
Combining the results of 33 past studies, Italian researchers found that current smokers were more than twice as likely as nonsmokers to develop cancer, either in their esophagus or in a part of the stomach called the gastric cardia.
In some of the studies, the risk of esophagus cancer remained high even when people had quit smoking three decades earlier.
Johnson & Johnson said it was recalling more than 700,000 bottles or packages of Tylenol and other consumer medicines made at a now-closed plant, the latest in a litany of recalls by the company.
J&J's McNeil Consumer Healthcare unit recalled one lot of Tylenol 8 Hour Extended Release Caplets, or 34,056 bottles, from retailers, the company said. The company cited a musty odor that has prompted many other J&J recalls. The product was made at its Fort Washington, Pennsylvania plant before J&J closed the facility in April 2010.
When a drug to prevent babies from being born too early won federal approval in February, many doctors, pregnant women and others cheered the step as a major advance against a heartbreaking tragedy. Then they saw the price tag.
The list price for the drug, Makena, turned out to be a stunning $1,500 per dose. That’s for a drug that must be injected every week for about 20 weeks, meaning it will cost about $30,000 per at-risk pregnancy. If every eligible American woman were to get Makena, the nation’s bloated annual health-care tab would swell by more than $4 billion.
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