Health News Roundup: Stricter gun laws tied to fewer childhood gun deaths; Biden cancer group shuts down operations
Following is a summary of current health news briefs.
Bayer's MRI contrast agent gets FDA approval for use in cardiac disease
Bayer AG on Monday said U.S. regulators approved its contrast agent for use in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to assess patients with known or suspected coronary artery disease. The injection, Gadavist, is an approved agent for use in MRI of the central nervous system and breasts. Contrast agents are used to make MRI scans easier to see.
Biden cancer group shuts down operations
The Biden Cancer Initiative, a non-profit organization started by former Vice President Joe Biden to support cancer prevention and research, said on Monday it suspended operations last week, two and a half months after Biden and his wife resigned from the group to focus on his presidential campaign. Biden, whose son Beau died from brain cancer in 2015, launched the group in 2017. He has said that he would like to president who presided over the end of cancer as we know it.
Democrat Booker unveils plan for Americans to age at home
Democratic presidential candidate Cory Booker was set to unveil a plan on Monday to greatly increase funding for elderly Americans needing long-term health care, and also to increase funding for people who look after them. Booker, a U.S. senator from New Jersey, was due to tell a forum in the early voting state of Iowa that he would make a dramatic investment in care for people with long-term health care needs if he was elected president.
Biden healthcare plan draws contrast with White House rivals
Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden unveiled a $750 billion healthcare plan on Monday that he said would strengthen the Affordable Care Act, drawing a contrast with rivals who back a more sweeping "Medicare for All" government-run system. Biden portrayed White House rivals led by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, who back a single-payer plan that eliminates private insurance, as a threat to former President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law known as Obamacare.
AstraZeneca's Farxiga fails to get U.S. approval for Type-1 diabetes
British drugmaker AstraZeneca Plc said on Monday the U.S. Food and Drug Administration declined to approve its diabetes treatment, Farxiga, for use as a supplement to insulin in adults with a rare-type of the condition. The company said the regulator issued a complete response letter, declining its application for using the drug in patients with Type-1 diabetes where insulin alone has not been able to control blood sugar levels.
Britain tells Canada and France to pull their weight on Ebola
Britain's international development minister Rory Stewart called on France and Canada on Monday to offer more help in tackling the Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo. Stewart, who visited the Ebola zone earlier this month, told a U.N. meeting that Britain had donated $45 million towards a previous Ebola outbreak and the current one, and that he had authorized a further $63 million of British spending.
20 million children miss out on life-saving vaccines, U.N. warns
More than one in 10 children - or 20 million worldwide - missed out last year on vaccines against life-threatening diseases such as measles, diphtheria and tetanus, the World Health Organization and the UNICEF children's fund said on Monday. In a report on global immunization coverage, the U.N. agencies found that vaccination levels are stagnating, notably in poor countries or areas of conflict.
Stricter gun laws tied to fewer childhood gun deaths
U.S. states with tighter restrictions on the purchase and use of guns and ammunition may have fewer children die from shootings, a new study suggests. The U.S. has the highest rate of gun ownership in the world, but also some of the most relaxed gun laws, previous research has found. Firearm injuries are the second leading cause of death among American children, but most studies of policies to prevent fatal shootings haven't focused specifically on kids, researchers note in Pediatrics.
Opioid 'kingpin' J&J fueled epidemic, Oklahoma argues at trial's end
Lawyers for the state of Oklahoma on Monday compared Johnson & Johnson to a drug cartel leader as they sought to hold the drugmaker responsible for fueling the U.S. opioid epidemic in the first trial to result from lawsuits over the crisis. Lawyers for the state, including Attorney General Mike Hunter, told a judge in Norman, Oklahoma that J&J's "greed" led the drugmaker to carry out a years-long marketing effort that caused "utter confusion" about the addictive painkillers' risks.
High blood pressure, high cholesterol early in life tied to heart problems later
People with high blood pressure or elevated cholesterol before age 40 are more likely to have a heart attack later in life than other adults, a new analysis suggests. The analysis pooled data from six studies involving a total of 36,030 people. Starting when participants were 53 years old on average, researchers tracked them to see who had heart attacks, strokes, or heart failure.
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