Reuters Health News Summary

Following is a summary of current health news briefs. Child abuse, recurrent depression linked to similar changes in brain

Abuse during childhood may cause physical changes to the human brain that in turn may render adults more vulnerable to depression, research suggests. In their study of people with major depressive disorder, two separate aspects of patients' history were both linked with alterations in brain structure: childhood maltreatment, and more severe and recurrent depression. China urges large pig farms to test for African swine fever

China will allow large-scale pig farms and breeding farms to test for African swine fever in a bid to help early detection of the disease, overturning an earlier prohibition on commercial firms carrying out their own testing. The agriculture ministry has asked local husbandry bureaus to encourage large farms to obtain testing kits for the deadly virus that has swept through the country, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said on its website on Tuesday. Amgen sets $21,900 annual price for new Evenity bone drug

Amgen Inc on Monday set the U.S. list price for its new Evenity osteoporosis drug at $1,825 a month, or $21,900 for a full 12-month course of injections. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration last week approved bone-building Evenity for postmenopausal women who are at high risk of fracture, but required the label to have a boxed warning, the FDA's strictest, flagging increased risk of heart attack, stroke and cardiovascular-related death. Recordati to seek Canadian approval for kidney disease drug

Italy's Recordati said on Tuesday it plans to seek Canadian approval for its drug Cystagon, which treats a rare kidney disease, in a potential blow to Horizon Pharma,, which makes the only drug approved for treatment in Canada. Cystagon and Horizon's drug Procysbi use the same active ingredient to treat nephropathic cystinosis, a genetic disorder that can cause fatal kidney damage. Only about 100 people in Canada have the disease, but at list prices Procysbi costs C$325,000 ($243,336.33) per year, according to Canadian regulators. Ebola is real, Congo president tells skeptical population

Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi on Tuesday implored people in areas hit by the nation's worst-ever Ebola outbreak to accept the disease is real and trust health workers. Mistrust of first responders and widespread misinformation propagated by some community leaders has led many in affected areas of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo to refuse vaccinations. Instead, they turn to traditional healers, whose clinics have contributed to the hemorrhagic fever's spread. In some states, sexting could land teens in jail for a long time

Sexting - the texting of sexual images - is increasingly common among teens, but in nearly half the U.S. the practice may hold an unexpected danger: in 23 states, sexting between teens is considered child pornography, which could potentially result in a 20-year prison term and mandatory registration as a sex offender, a new report warns. More than a quarter of teens say they have received a sext and nearly 15 percent say they have sent a sext, researchers report in Pediatrics. The prevalence of sexting has been on the rise as more and more teens acquire smart phones, the authors noted. FDA orders transvaginal surgical mesh pulled from market

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday ordered makers of transvaginal surgical mesh implants to immediately stop their sale and distribution in the United States, the latest action by the agency to tackle safety issues related to the devices. The FDA said Boston Scientific Corp and Coloplast A/S did not demonstrate a reasonable assurance of safety and effectiveness of these devices in their premarket applications. The companies will have 10 days to submit their plan to withdraw these products from the market, the FDA said in a statement https://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm636114.htm. U.S. Supreme Court rejects Allergan bid to use tribe to shield drug patents

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday cast aside pharmaceutical company Allergan Plc's unorthodox bid to shield patents from a federal administrative court's review by transferring them to a Native American tribe. The justices left in place a lower court ruling upholding the authority of a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office tribunal to decide the validity of patents covering Allergan's dry eye drug Restasis, refusing to hear the company's appeal. Allergan had argued that the tribe's sovereign status under federal law made the patents immune from administrative review by the agency. U.S. health officials probe multi-state Salmonella outbreak

U.S. federal health officials said on Tuesday an investigation is underway over a multi-state outbreak of Salmonella Newport infections linked to frozen ground tuna, which were imported into the United States by seafood retailer Jensen Tuna. No deaths were reported so far, but seven people have been hospitalized, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said in a statement http://bit.ly/2VaoETq. U.S. measles cases surge nearly 20 percent in early April, CDC says

The number of confirmed cases of measles in the United States this year jumped by nearly 20 percent in the week ended April 11, in the country's second-worst outbreak in nearly two decades, federal health officials reported on Monday. As of April 11, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recorded 555 cases of the disease since the beginning of the year, up from 465 cases confirmed by April 4. The cases were found in 20 states spanning the country.

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