Reuters Health News Summary

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) Drinking by prospective fathers tied to infant heart defects

Fathers who drink alcohol in the months just before their child is conceived are more likely to have a baby with heart defects than those who abstain prior to conception, a recent study suggests. When fathers do drink in the three months prior to conception, babies are 44% more likely to have congenital heart defects than when they don't, the study found. And when fathers had drinking binges - more than five drinks on a single occasion - babies were 52% more likely to have heart defects. Jury says J&J must pay $8 billion in case over male breast growth linked to Risperdal

Johnson & Johnson must pay $8 billion in punitive damages to a man who previously won $680,000 over his claims that it failed to warn that young men using its antipsychotic drug Risperdal could grow breasts, a Philadelphia jury said on Tuesday. The Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas jury's verdict in favor of Nicholas Murray came in the first case in which a Pennsylvania jury had been able to consider awarding punitive damages in one of thousands of Risperdal cases pending in the state. Alibaba to stop sales of e-cigarette components in United States

Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba said on Wednesday it will stop selling e-cigarette components in the United States, amid growing regulatory scrutiny and reports of lung disease and some deaths linked to vaping. The move follows announcements by Kroger Co and Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc this week that they would stop selling e-cigarettes at their stores, in line with a similar decision by Walmart. Humira, Rituxan top list of U.S. drugs with biggest price increases: report

AbbVie Inc's rheumatoid 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. GSK recalls popular heartburn drug Zantac globally after cancer scare

GlaxoSmithKline on Tuesday said it is recalling the popular heartburn medicine Zantac in all markets as a "precaution", days after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration found "unacceptable" levels of probable cancer-causing impurity in the drug. Zantac, also sold generically as ranitidine, is the latest drug in which cancer-causing impurities have been found. Regulators have been recalling some blood pressure and heart failure medicines since last year. CDC says STD cases in U.S. rose to record high in 2018 as funding lags

The number of Americans who were diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease (STD) last year rose to a record high, U.S. health officials said on Tuesday, partly because funding for local health departments has dropped. Nearly 2.46 million cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis and other STDs were reported in 2018, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a report. The total includes some 1,300 cases of congenital syphilis in newborns. Diabetics can reduce heat illness from exercise

Diabetes can make people more prone to heat stroke when they exercise on hot days, but two studies suggest there are things diabetics and others can do to lower their risk of heat-related illnesses. Exercising in the heat may get harder with age because older adults don't sweat as easily to help reduce body temperature. This risk may be even greater when people have diabetes because of diminished blood flow in the skin and reduced ability to get rid of excess heat by sweating, researchers note in JAMA. One quarter of every U.S. healthcare dollar wasted

About a quarter of the dollars spent on healthcare in the U.S. may be wasted, a new analysis suggests. Six types of waste in healthcare could be costing as much as $935 billion annually, according to the study published in JAMA. Cracks in Purdue's proposed opioid settlement as Arizona backs out

The U.S. state of Arizona withdrew its support for a proposed nationwide opioid settlement with Purdue Pharma LP, saying the maker of OxyContin sought to "undermine material terms of the deal," according to a court filing on Monday. Since Purdue filed for bankruptcy protection in September, Arizona is the first state to switch sides in the looming showdown over the privately-held company's proposed settlement, which it has estimated is worth more than $10 billion.

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