Reuters Health News Summary

Following is a summary of current health news briefs. Amgen takes 20.5% stake in BeiGene to sell cancer drugs in China

Amgen Inc said on Thursday it will take a 20.5% stake in BeiGene Ltd in a deal to expand the California-based biotechnology company's presence in China, the world's second largest pharmaceutical market. Amgen said it will pay around $2.7 billion in cash, or $174.85 per BeiGene American depository share, for the stake in BeiGene, which will commercialize three Amgen cancer drugs in China. The two companies will also collaborate on development of Amgen's oncology pipeline. Warren details Medicare for All payment plan with no new taxes for middle class

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren said on Friday the Medicare for All system she backs would cost the U.S. government an extra $20.5 trillion over 10 years but would not "require raising taxes one penny" on the middle class. Instead, she said, it would save American households $11 trillion in current out-of-pocket spending. Australian healthcare shares hold ground as report flags regulatory change

Shares of Australia's biggest listed aged care providers bounced back from early losses on Friday after a government-backed inquiry sharply criticized care of the elderly and vulnerable, raising expectations of a far-reaching regulatory overhaul. The Royal Commission inquiry, released after the market close on Thursday, called for a fundamental overhaul of Australia's aged care system after an almost year-long investigation of the A$20 billion ($14 billion) industry. China calls for businesses to shut down e-cigarette online shops

China's tobacco regulator on Friday issued a notice asking e-commerce platforms and businesses to shut online stores that sell electronic cigarette products, in a move aimed at stopping minors from purchasing e-cigarettes through the internet. The notice comes not long after online platforms and retailers in the U.S. launched similar takedowns amid government scrutiny toward vaping's effect on public health. U.S. vaping-related deaths rise to 37, cases of illness to 1,888

U.S. health officials on Thursday reported 1,888 confirmed and probable cases and 3 more deaths from a mysterious respiratory illness tied to vaping, taking the total death toll to 37. Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported 1,604 cases and 34 deaths from the illness and said the number of reported cases in the epidemic appears to be leveling off or declining. Novartis arthritis drug falls short in challenge to global bestseller

Novartis said a trial fell short of producing statistical evidence that its anti-inflammatory drug Cosentyx can beat the world's best-selling drug Humira in treating a type of arthritis. The Swiss pharma giant said on Friday that Cosentyx, used in a trial to treat active psoriatic arthritis, yielded "numerically higher results versus Humira" but the statistical readout was not reliable enough to count as evidence. Exclusive: J&J's own expert, working for FDA, found asbestos in Baby Powder

Ever since Johnson & Johnson disclosed this month that a government test had turned up asbestos in its Baby Powder, the company has attacked the validity of the result. On Tuesday, for example, J&J announced that other labs it hired ultimately found no asbestos in samples from the bottle tested by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or from the same production lot. Infection amnesia: Measles 'destroys immune system memory'

Getting measles is even more dangerous than doctors had realized, because it destroys immunity that the victim has acquired to other diseases, researchers said on Thursday. The findings help to explain why children often catch other infectious diseases after having measles, and underscore the dangers of growing resistance to childhood vaccination in some countries, according to two studies published simultaneously. Exclusive: WHO, Congo eye tighter rules for Ebola care over immunity concerns

The World Health Organization and Congolese authorities are proposing changes to how some Ebola patients are cared for, new guidelines show, after a patient's death challenged the accepted medical theory that survivors are immune to reinfection. There are many unanswered questions surrounding the circumstances of the woman's death in Democratic Republic of Congo, which has not previously been reported. Schools in New Delhi shut until November 5 as air pollution severe

Schools in the Indian capital will be shut until Nov. 5, the city government said on Friday, as residents breathed the season's worst air for a third straight day. As farm fires from New Delhi's neighboring states sent swathes of smoke into the capital, the city's chief minister Arvind Kejriwal ordered schools to be closed, the minister said in a tweet he posted in Hindi.

Also Read: UPDATE 1-Amgen takes 20.5% stake in BeiGene to sell cancer drugs in China