Reuters Health News Summary

Following is a summary of current health news briefs. U.S. indicts Indivior over Suboxone opioid treatment marketing

The U.S. Justice Department announced on Tuesday the indictment of Indivior Plc and a subsidiary on charges they engaged in an illegal scheme to boost prescriptions of the film version of its opioid addiction treatment Suboxone. An indictment filed in federal court in Abingdon, Virginia, alleged Indivior made billions of dollars by deceiving doctors and healthcare benefit programs into believing the film version of Suboxone was safer and less susceptible to abuse than similar drugs. Telemedicine not ideal for kids with respiratory infections

(Reuters Health) - Children with acute respiratory infections were prescribed antibiotics more often when the doctor "visit" was via telemedicine instead of at a primary care office or an urgent care clinic, a new study shows. "We found that compared to primary care and urgent care, children with these acute respiratory infections who received care through direct-to-consumer telemedicine were much more likely to receive antibiotics and much less likely to receive antibiotics that were appropriate for the diagnosis they were given," said the study's lead author, Dr. Kristin Ray, a pediatrician at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Exclusive breastfeeding tied to healthier cholesterol in teens

(Reuters Health) - Babies who consume nothing but breast milk for their first three months of life may have healthier cholesterol levels by adolescence than infants who drink formula, a new study suggests. Pediatricians recommend that mothers exclusively breastfeed infants until they're at least 6 months old because it can bolster babies' immune systems and reduce their risk of ear and respiratory infections, sudden infant death syndrome, allergies, obesity and diabetes. Breast milk does contain more cholesterol than formula, however, and little is known about how this might impact cholesterol levels later in life, researchers note in Pediatrics. Yoga may help ease mood disorders in Parkinson's patients

(Reuters Health) - People with Parkinson's disease may have less anxiety and depression when they practice yoga focused on mindfulness and breathing exercises, a small experiment suggests. Parkinson's disease is one of the most common chronic neurodegenerative diseases. Classic motor symptoms include tremors, rigidity, slowed movements, and postural instability - but patients with Parkinson's can also experience a variety of cognitive problems as well as psychiatric disorders like depression and anxiety, researchers note in JAMA Neurology. New York declares measles emergency, blasts misinformation fueling outbreak

A measles outbreak in Brooklyn, primarily among Orthodox Jewish children, prompted New York City on Tuesday to declare a public health emergency, requiring unvaccinated people in the affected areas to get the vaccine or face fines The city's largest outbreak since 1991 of the once virtually eradicated disease has mainly been confined to the Orthodox Jewish community in the borough's Williamsburg neighborhood, with 285 cases confirmed since October, Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news conference. That's up sharply from only two reported cases in all of 2017. In New York, confusion reigns in the emerging CBD edibles business

New York state officials told food growers and processors in mid-December that they had the state's blessing to produce and sell tea and chocolates laced with CBD, the cannabis derivative reputed to ease anxiety and other ills without marijuana's high. But since then, New York City health inspectors have seized thousands of dollars worth of CBD-infused food and drinks at the Fat Cat Kitchen and other local cafes and restaurants, and warned owners to stop selling them or face penalties. The crackdown came just weeks after federal law explicitly made CBD legal across the country. U.S. charges 24 in $1.2 billion Medicare orthotic brace fraud

U.S. authorities on Tuesday said they have broken up a $1.2 billion Medicare fraud in which doctors, telemarketers and owners of medical equipment companies peddled medically unnecessary orthotic braces to hundreds of thousands of elderly and disabled patients. Authorities called the case one of the largest health care frauds ever prosecuted in the United States. Caffeine could boost exercise performance

(Reuters Health) - Taking caffeine before exercise could improve performance during a broad range of exercise tasks, according to a new review of past research. In particular, caffeine could help speed, power, strength and endurance, researchers wrote in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Amgen's postmenopausal osteoporosis drug gets FDA greenlight

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday it had approved Amgen Inc's osteoporosis treatment for postmenopausal women who are at high risk of fracture. Postmenopausal osteoporosis is a chronic condition resulting from progressive bone loss beginning around menopause. Century-old bacteria from sick soldier offer clues to cholera epidemics

Scientists have mapped the genome of a strain of cholera extracted a century ago from a sick British soldier during World War One and found clues to how some cholera bacteria strains cause epidemics today. The bug - thought to be the oldest publicly available sample of the V. cholerae bacterium - was isolated in 1916 from the soldier's "choleraic diarrhoea" while he was convalescing in Egypt, the researchers said.