Health News Roundup: Two-century trend of Army suicide decrease during war reversed in past two decades

Following is a summary of current health news briefs. The two-century trend of Army suicide decrease during war reversed in past two decades

While army suicides have historically decreased during wartime, that trend appears to have reversed in recent decades, a new study of U.S. records finds. Researchers poring over nearly 200 years of data found that unlike earlier times when there was a decline in suicide rates among U.S. Army soldiers during and just after wars, the rate has risen significantly since 2004, according to the report in JAMA Network Open. FDA panel votes unanimously in favor of Horizon's thyroid eye disease drug

Independent advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday voted unanimously in favor of Horizon Therapeutics Plc's experimental treatment for thyroid eye disease (TED), taking the drug a step towards potential approval. If approved, teprotumumab, a type of immunotherapy, is expected to become a standard of care for the vision-threatening autoimmune disorder, which currently has no approved therapies. Pfizer's rare disease drug gets EMA's positive recommendation

Pfizer Inc said on Friday the European Medicines Agency granted the company a positive recommendation for approval of its treatment for a rare disorder that occurs in patients with cardiomyopathy. The drug, Vyndaqel, is used to treat patients who suffer from a form of amyloidosis, which is a rare, progressive disease characterized by the abnormal buildup of a protein called amyloid in the body's organs and tissues. GSK's ViiV seeks marketing license for baby-friendly HIV pill

British drugmaker GSK applied on Friday for a license to market its HIV drug dolutegravir in a formulation designed to be easier for babies and children who are living with the virus to swallow. About 1.7 million children have HIV, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa, the United Nations agency UNAIDS says. Roche's Tecentriq cocktail scores trial success in melanoma

A late-stage clinical trial has shown therapy combining Roche's immunotherapy Tecentriq with two of its other drugs helped people with a form of advanced melanoma, the Swiss drugmaker said on Friday. The study met its primary aim of showing progression-free survival in patients with previously untreated BRAF V600 mutation-positive advanced melanoma, Roche said. Biogen scraps development of therapy for rare brain disease

Biogen Inc said on Friday it would discontinue the development of its experimental therapy for a rare brain disease after the treatment failed a mid-stage trial, the latest setback in attempts to develop a therapy for the disorder. The therapy, gosuranemab, failed to hit statistical significance in its main goal and did not demonstrate effectiveness on key secondary goals when tested in patients with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP). End of life planning tied to longer survival with terminal illness

(Reuters Health) - Terminally-ill patients who discussed their options for end-of-life care tended to survive longer than those who had not, a small clinical trial in Denmark found. The authors originally set out to learn if advance care planning influenced whether terminally-ill patients died at home or in the hospital. But they also noticed a marked difference in how many trial participants lived for a year or more and decided to take a closer look. Ebola spreads in Congo after militants attack treatment camp: WHO

Cases of the deadly Ebola virus have risen in the Democratic Republic of Congo where health care workers remain largely cut off from the disease's hotspots since militants attacked their camp, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday. Twenty-seven Ebola cases were confirmed in North Kivu and Ituri provinces in the week through Dec. 10, against an average of seven in the last three weeks, WHO said. Sarepta shares surge after surprise approval of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy drug

Shares of Sarepta Therapeutics Inc soared 36% on Friday after U.S. regulators shocked Wall Street by approving the company's treatment for a muscle-wasting disorder less than four months after rejecting the drug over safety concerns. The Food and Drug Administration in August declined to approve the Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) treatment, Vyondys 53, citing a risk of infection and kidney toxicity. U.S. vaping-related deaths rise to 52, hospitalizations to 2,409

U.S. health officials said on Thursday four more deaths occurred since last week from a mysterious respiratory illness tied to vaping, taking the total toll to 52. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also reported 118 more hospitalized cases from 50 states, the District of Columbia, and two U.S. territories, as of Dec. 10. The number of people hospitalized now stands at 2,409.

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