Reuters Health News Summary

Following is a summary of current health news briefs. Sign-ups for 2020 Obamacare insurance on HealthCare.gov fall to 8.3 million: CMS

Enrollments for 2020 insurance plans, under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), on the HealthCare.gov website fell by about 200,000 from last year to 8.3 million, the U.S. government said on Friday, citing preliminary data. The data, as of Dec. 17, includes consumers who were granted an extension because they were unable to complete the enrollment process on Dec. 15, the initial deadline for open enrollment. U.S. government says verdict in Bayer's Roundup case should be reversed

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Justice Department said a federal appeals court should reverse a lower court verdict finding Bayer AG liable in the case of a California man who blamed its Roundup weed killer for his cancer. The government said in a friend of the court brief filed on Friday that glyphosate, the weed killer's active ingredient, is not a carcinogen and as a result a warning on the label was not required as California state law demands. AstraZeneca, Daiichi's breast cancer drug gets accelerated approval from FDA

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Friday it had approved Daiichi Sankyo Co Ltd and AstraZeneca Plc's drug to treat an advanced form of breast cancer, three months ahead of schedule. AstraZeneca in March signed a licensing and collaboration deal that committed the British drugmaker to pay up to $6.9 billion to its Japanese partner Daiichi. (https://reut.rs/2sKMyIy) Novartis in talks with patients upset about lottery-like gene therapy giveaway

Novartis is in discussion with patient groups over its lottery-style free drug program for its multi-million-dollar gene therapy for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) after criticism that the process could be unfair to some babies with the deadly disease. The company said on Friday that it will be open to refining the process in the future, but it is not making any changes at this time. The program is for patients in countries where the medicine, called Zolgensma, is not yet approved for the rare genetic disorder, which can lead to death and profound physical disabilities. Canadian drug distributors say no to Trump import plan

Many of Canada's drug suppliers cannot, or will not, agree to ship cheaper prescription medicines into the United States, a new challenge to the Trump administration's push to reduce drug prices, companies and industry officials told Reuters. The administration on Wednesday proposed new regulations that would allow states to import prescription drugs from Canada. They would require a state such as Florida to partner with a wholesaler licensed by Health Canada, which regulates drugs. Knee injuries in early adulthood may hasten arthritis

Young adults who have had knee injuries are much more likely than uninjured peers to develop arthritis in the knee by middle age, especially if they have broken bones or torn connective tissue, a recent study suggests. Researchers followed almost 150,000 adults ages 25 to 34, including about 5,200 with a history of knee injuries, for almost two decades. Compared to people who never had knee injuries, those who did were nearly six times as likely to develop knee osteoarthritis during the first 11 years of follow-up, with more than triple the risk over the next eight years. U.S. FDA declines to approve GSK drugs division's long acting HIV injection

GlaxoSmithKline's HIV drugs division ViiV Healthcare said on Saturday that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration declined to approve its long acting HIV injection. ViiV, in which Pfizer and Shionogi have small stakes, said it received a so-called complete response letter (CRL) from the FDA in which the regulator questioned the treatment's chemistry, manufacturing and controls process, but not its safety. Merck says Ebola vaccine to be available at lowest access price for poor nations

Merck & Co said on Friday it expects to make licensed doses of its recently approved Ebola vaccine available in the third quarter of 2020 and price the single-dose injection at the lowest possible access price for poor and middle-income countries. The vaccine, Ervebo, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday, a month after Europe gave its nod to the vaccine, a move that has been hailed by the World Health Organization. First Ebola relapse recorded in Congo outbreak, WHO says

Health officials in eastern Congo have documented the first relapse in the current Ebola epidemic, the World Health Organization said on Friday. The Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo has so far infected more than 3,300 people and killed more than 2,200 since the middle of last year, making it the second-worst on record. As U.S. vaping injuries taper off, new evidence points to vitamin E

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a series of reports on Friday indicating that the outbreak of vaping-related lung injuries appears to be waning, as evidence mounts that vitamin E acetate, a cutting agent used in marijuana vape cartridges, is playing a role in the illnesses. So far, 54 people have died and more than 2,500 have been hospitalized in the outbreak, which started in the summer and spread to all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and two U.S. territories.