Reuters Health News Summary

Following is a summary of current health news briefs. London HIV patient becomes world's second AIDS cure hope

An HIV-positive man in Britain has become the second known adult worldwide to be cleared of the AIDS virus after he received a bone marrow transplant from an HIV-resistant donor, his doctors said. Almost three years after he received bone marrow stem cells from a donor with a rare genetic mutation that resists HIV infection - and more than 18 months after he came off antiretroviral drugs - highly sensitive tests still show no trace of the man's previous HIV infection. French court dismisses damages claims against Merck over thyroid drug

A court in the French city of Lyon threw out on Tuesday claims made by 4,113 plaintiffs for damages against Merck over changes to its thyroid drug Levothyrox. The plaintiffs had accused Merck of not providing sufficient information regarding changes to the product. Eli Lilly seeks to quell drug price anger with cheaper insulin

Drugmaker Eli Lilly announced plans on Monday to sell a half-price version of its popular insulin injection Humalog, as it fends off criticism about rising drug prices in the United States. Major drugmakers including Lilly, a leading producer of insulin, have come under fire from patients and lawmakers over the rising cost of the life-saving medication used to treat diabetes. Vietnam calls for 'drastic measures' to fight African swine fever

Vietnam's prime minister has called for "drastic measures" to fight the spread of African swine fever in the Southeast Asian country, state media reported on Tuesday. The highly contagious disease, which is incurable in pigs but harmless to humans, has spread rapidly across neighboring China since August, and has been found in seven areas in Vietnam, the state-run Vietnam News Service reported. FDA finds asbestos in three products sold by Claire's

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration called on Congress on Tuesday to modernize rules for cosmetics safety after it issued an alert about asbestos contamination detected in three products sold by retailer Claire's. The FDA said it would work with Congress to update the outdated regulatory framework that the agency has been operating under for more than 80 years for cosmetics. Female scientists get smaller first-time grants than men

Women in science receive smaller research grants than men even when they have similar qualifications, a U.S. study suggests. Researchers analyzed 53,903 grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health to first-time principal investigators from 2006 to 2017. Men and women were similar on key benchmarks used to assess applicants; regardless of sex, half of them had published at least two research papers a year, had their articles cited at least 15 times in other papers, and published in at least two research areas. FDA chief Gottlieb resigning

U.S. Food and Drug Administration chief Scott Gottlieb announced his planned resignation on Tuesday, the Department of Health and Human Services said, and plans to step down in one month. Gottlieb won bipartisan support for his efforts to curb the use of flavored e-cigarettes by youths, speed approval times for cheap generic medicines to increase competition and bring down prescription drug prices and boost the use of cheaper versions of expensive biotech medicines, called biosimilars. MSF-run hospital develops 3D printed prosthetics for war victims

A hospital in Jordan has given a victim of Yemen's war new hope for the future, thanks to the cutting edge technology of 3D printed prosthetics. 21-year-old Abdullah Ayed lost one arm and badly damaged the other when his home in Aden was hit by an explosive in 2017. U.S. seeks to cut dialysis costs with more home care versus clinics

The Trump administration is working on a new payment approach for treating kidney disease that favors lower cost care at home and transplants, a change that would upend a dialysis industry that provides care in thousands of clinics nationwide. The goal is to reduce the $114 billion paid by the U.S. government each year to treat chronic kidney disease and end-stage renal disease, a top area of spending. Spending on abstinence-only education not tied to fewer teen births

U.S. government spending on abstinence-only education doesn't appear to reduce teen pregnancies and in some areas is having the opposite effect, a recent study suggests. Across the country, government-funded abstinence-until-marriage education did not predict a reduction in teen births - and in conservative states, it was associated with higher adolescent birth rates, the study found.