Health News Roundup: Congo's Ebola outbreak; Juul Labs to pull sweet e-cig flavors; high-sugar foods


Devdiscourse News Desk | Updated: 14-11-2018 16:00 IST | Created: 14-11-2018 10:28 IST
Health News Roundup: Congo's Ebola outbreak; Juul Labs to pull sweet e-cig flavors; high-sugar foods

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

Walmart, Home Depot adopt health insurer tactic in drug copay battle

Walmart and Home Depot, two of the top 10 U.S. employers, have embraced a health insurance strategy that punishes drugmakers for using discount cards to keep patients from switching or stopping their medications. Large U.S. companies have started tightly managing how employees and their family members use these popular discount, or copay, cards for everything from multiple sclerosis treatments to widely-used rheumatoid arthritis medications sold through a specialty pharmacy.

Congo's Ebola outbreak to last at least six more months: WHO

The Ebola outbreak in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, which has already killed more than 200 people, is expected to last until mid-2019, a senior World Health Organization official said on Tuesday. "It's very hard to predict timeframes in an outbreak as complicated as this with so many variables that are outside our control, but certainly we're planning on at least another six months before we can declare this outbreak over," WHO emergency response chief Peter Salama told reporters.

Mayo Clinic gets $200 million donation from turnaround expert Jay Alix

The Mayo Clinic on Tuesday said it received $200 million, the largest donation the academic medical center has ever received, from Jay Alix, founder of the consulting firm Alix Partners. The Minnesota-based non-profit organization said the donation would help it widen scholarships and further research at its medical school.

Juul Labs to pull sweet e-cig flavors to curb youth use

Juul Labs Inc, the U.S. market leader for electronic cigarettes, said on Tuesday it will pull popular flavors such as mango, cucumber and fruit from retail store shelves in an effort to reduce surging teenage use of its products. The move comes as Juul and other e-cigarette makers have faced heightened scrutiny from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration amid a sharp increase by high school students in use of the devices, which look like a USB flash drive and vaporize a flavored liquid containing nicotine.

Beekeeper therapist uses venom to heal his patients

On his rooftop in the outskirts of Cairo, Omar Abulhassan raises thousands of bees -- not for the honey, but their venom. After reading about the benefits of bees in the Koran, Abulhassan, 30, decided five years ago to raise the insects and use the venom in alternative therapy. He believes bee stings can relieve pain and cure illnesses such as rheumatism.

Many U.S. drugstores fail to provide naloxone for opioid overdoses

Despite state laws expanding access to the opioid-overdose antidote naloxone without a prescription, two U.S. studies suggest many pharmacies don't stock the drug or make it easily available to people who need it. In California, where pharmacists have been able to dispense naloxone without a prescription since 2016, fewer than one in four drugstores in a survey gave the drug to people without a prescription, one of the studies found. When pharmacists were willing to give naloxone without a prescription, in theory, only about half of the drugstores had it in stock.

U.S. physicians urge FDA to bolster labeling on high-sugar foods

The American Medical Association (AMA) is urging the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ramp up labeling of high-sugar foods, it said in a statement on Tuesday. The association, which represents U.S. physicians, is calling on the FDA to develop front-of-package warning labels for foods high in added sugars. It is also pushing for the FDA to limit the amount of sugar that can be added to products that claim to have health or nutritional benefits.

Most violent injuries seen in ER not reported to police

The vast majority of violent injuries seen by doctors in emergency rooms are not reported to police, a new report suggests. Researchers looking at violent injuries treated in emergency rooms in the metropolitan Atlanta area found that fewer than two in 10 were reported to law enforcement, according to the study in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Patients and industry fret over drug supplies if no Brexit deal

Consumers and the pharmaceuticals industry alike are anxious about medicine supplies, if there is no deal on Britain's departure from the European Union. While the EU and Britain have agreed a draft text of a Brexit withdrawal agreement, it remains unclear if Prime Minister Theresa May can get it approved by parliament.

Express Scripts offers new formulary for lower list-price drugs

Express Scripts Holding Co on Tuesday announced a new drug reimbursement list with lower U.S. prices for brand-name medications, as a way to encourage drugmakers to move away from paying rebates after a prescription is filled. The manager of prescription drug benefits for large corporate employers and government health plans said its new National Preferred Flex Formulary will be available as of Jan. 1 to all clients. So far two drugs from a Gilead Sciences Inc unit will be on the new formulary, which Express Scripts said in a statement it hoped would encourage more drugmakers to keep list prices low.

(With inputs from Reuters)

(With inputs from agencies.)

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