Health News Roundup: Kroger, Walgreens to stop sales of e-cigarettes amid U.S. vaping crackdown

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

Factbox: U.S. vaping-related deaths rise to 21

Massachusetts state health officials on Monday confirmed one death from a mysterious lung illness linked to e-cigarettes, bringing the total number of fatalities to 21 across 18 U.S. states. Latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which updates the national numbers every Thursday, listed 1,080 confirmed and probable cases of the illness as of Oct. 1. (http://bit.ly/2IlMmo5)

Democrat lawmaker introduces bill to cap nicotine content in vapes

A U.S. lawmaker on Monday introduced a bill that seeks to regulate e-cigarette makers by capping the amount of nicotine in the vapes they manufacture to make them less addictive. The bill, introduced by Illinois Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, is the latest effort by lawmakers to clamp down on e-cigarette use, given a spike in underage vaping.

Swedish hospital tests patient for Ebola, infection "unlikely"

A hospital in southern Sweden said on Tuesday it was testing a patient for Ebola who had come in with a fever after traveling in an infected area. It was unlikely that the patient had caught the deadly disease, "but we can't rule it out before we have the test results," a spokesman at the Skane University Hospital said.

Nobel Medicine Prize won by doctors for work on cells' response to oxygen

Two Americans and a Briton won the 2019 Nobel Medicine Prize on Monday for discovering a molecular switch that regulates how cells adapt to fluctuating oxygen levels, opening up new approaches to treating heart failure, anemia, and cancer. William Kaelin at the U.S. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School said he was overwhelmed to get a pre-dawn call to say he and two other doctors, Gregg Semenza of Johns Hopkins University and Peter Ratcliffe of Oxford University, had won the 9-million Swedish-crown ($913,000) prize.

U.S. recorded seven new cases of measles last week

The United States recorded 7 new measles cases last week taking the total cases for the year to 1,250 in the worst outbreak since 1992, federal health officials said on Monday. As of Oct. 3, the highly contagious and sometimes deadly disease has been reported in 31 states, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (https://bit.ly/2iMFK71)

Paralyzed man hails 'feat' of walking again with robot exoskeleton

The French tetraplegic man who has been able to walk again using a pioneering four-limb robotic system, or exoskeleton, said walking was a major feat for him after being immobile for years. The French scientists behind the system, which was publicly unveiled last week, use a system of sensors implanted near the brain which sends signals to the robotic system, moving the patient's legs and arms.

Two school districts sue Juul over vaping 'epidemic'

Two public school districts on Monday sued Juul Labs Inc, accusing the company of endangering their students and draining their resources by marketing its addictive e-cigarettes to teenagers. The St. Charles, Missouri, and Olathe, Kansas, public school systems appeared to be the first school districts to join the rising wave of litigation against Juul.

Humira, Rituxan top list of U.S. drugs with biggest price increases: report

AbbVie Inc's arthritis drug Humira and Roche Holding AG's cancer drug Rituxan topped a list of seven treatments whose combined 2017 and 2018 price hikes accounted for a $5.1 billion increase in U.S. spending, a report released on Tuesday showed. The price hikes were more than twice the rate of medical inflation and were not supported by any new clinical evidence, the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) said in the analysis.

Novartis gets U.S. approval for eye drug Beovu

Novartis has received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its Beovu drug to treat a cause of vision loss, the Swiss pharmaceuticals company said on Tuesday. Beovu injections are used to treat wet age-related macular degeneration, a condition that can eventually lead to blindness and affects around 20 million people worldwide, the company said.

Kroger, Walgreens to stop sales of e-cigarettes amid U.S. vaping crackdown

Kroger Co and Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc said on Monday they would stop selling e-cigarettes at their stores, amid heightened regulatory scrutiny of the product and reports of lung disease and some deaths linked to vaping. Their move comes weeks after Walmart Inc said it was pulling the plug on e-cigarette sales, citing growing federal, state and local regulatory complexity and uncertainty.

Also Read: Banned in Boston: Without vaping, medical marijuana patients must adapt

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)