Reuters Health News Summary

Following is a summary of current health news briefs. Granting dying patients' wishes may help families feel better about end-of-life ICU care

Families of dying patients may feel better about end-of-life care in the ICU if they are granted simple wishes, like letting the patient taste a favorite meal or use a blanket from home, a small study suggests. Researchers interviewed families and caregivers of 730 terminally ill patients about their experiences with the 3 Wishes Project (3WP), a program designed to create meaningful patient- and family-centered memories as part of compassionate end-of-life care. Burger King picks Unilever to make plant-based Whoppers in Europe

Burger King on Monday rolled out a meat-free version of its Whopper burger in 25 European countries, using patties made by Unilever Plc to strengthen its foothold in the exploding market for plant-based food served in restaurant chains. Heightened concerns about health and the environmental impact of industrial animal farming are pushing plant-based proteins into restaurant menus and chilled meat aisles in stores. Companies from Beyond Meat Inc to Impossible Foods Inc are competing fiercely for deals with fast-food makers, as plant-based mania spreads across Europe and the United States. Hospital sticker prices can rise faster than inflation

U.S. hospitals' sticker prices for two common sources of surprise medical bills have climbed far faster than economic inflation, a new study suggests. Researchers focused on so-called chargemaster rates, or sticker prices, for two services that are often the source of surprise medical bills for patients - emergency medicine and anesthesiology. Patients with insurance usually pay only a small fraction of chargemaster rates, but people who lack insurance or receive care from out-of-network physicians may be billed at these higher rates. Pneumonia kills a child every 39 seconds, health agencies say

Pneumonia killed more than 800,000 babies and young children last year - or one child every 39 seconds - despite being curable and mostly preventable, global health agencies said on Tuesday. In a report on what they described as a "forgotten epidemic", the United Nations children's fund UNICEF, the international charity Save The Children and four other health agencies urged governments to step up investment in vaccines to prevent the disease and in health services and medicines to treat it. Google signs healthcare data and cloud computing deal with Ascension

Alphabet Inc's Google has signed its biggest cloud computing customer in healthcare to date, in a deal giving it access to datasets that could help it tune potentially lucrative artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Google and Ascension, which operates 150 hospitals and more than 50 senior living facilities across the United States, said the healthcare provider would move some data and analytics tools in its facilities to Google's servers. AstraZeneca succeeds in treating lupus in late-stage study

AstraZeneca Plc said on Monday its experimental treatment significantly reduced disease activity in patients with autoimmune disorder lupus, in a late-stage study. The results pit the British drugmaker's anifrolumab against rival GlaxoSmithKline Plc's Benlysta - the only new drug approved for lupus in the last 60 years. Roche sets sights on Novartis, Biogen as SMA trial hits target

Roche's bid to rival Biogen and Novartis in treating spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) got a lift on Monday when the Swiss drugmaker said its drug risdiplam improved motor function of patients in a key study. Roche, which plans to seek approval for the investigational medicine this year, said its SUNFISH trial demonstrated statistically significant improvements in patients aged 2-25 years with Type 2 or 3 SMA, compared to a placebo. Merck wins European approval for first-ever Ebola vaccine

U.S. drugmaker Merck & Co Inc on Monday received approval from the European Commission to market (http://bit.ly/2NZ0QMB) its Ebola vaccine, less than a month after a European medicines panel backed the first-ever vaccine against the deadly virus. The vaccine, Ervebo, is approved for individuals aged 18 years and older and has already been used under emergency guidelines to try to protect against the spread of a deadly Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo. Trump to meet with vaping industry as he mulls tighter regulation

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he will be meeting with vaping industry representatives as his administration considers tightening e-cigarette regulations amid a nationwide outbreak of vaping-related injuries and deaths. "Will be meeting with representatives of the Vaping industry, together with medical professionals and individual state representatives, to come up with an acceptable solution to the Vaping and E-cigarette dilemma. Children’s health & safety, together with jobs, will be a focus!" he wrote on Twitter. FDA rejects Lipocine's testosterone drug for third time

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday declined to approve Lipocine Inc's oral drug to treat a condition that results in lower production of male sex hormone for the third time, sending the drug developer's shares down 34%. The company said a letter from the regulator indicated the application could not be approved in its present form as Lipocine's trial did not meet three secondary goals that were designed to assess if higher levels of testosterone in patients could raise safety concerns.