Reuters Health News Summary

Following is a summary of current health news briefs. FDA approves expanded label for Regeneron/Sanofi's cholesterol drug

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc's cholesterol drug Praluent as a treatment to cut the risk of heart attacks, stroke and other major cardiovascular events. The FDA's decision will allow the drug, developed along with Sanofi SA, to be prescribed to reduce the overall risk of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE). Kids' cavities probably not caused by bad genes

Environmental factors appear to play a bigger role than genetics in shaping children's risk for cavities, a study of Australian twins suggests. Researchers followed 345 twins from 24 weeks' gestation through six years of age, when they all had dental checkups. At age six, 32 percent of the kids had tooth decay and 24 percent of the children had advanced cavities. Parents bring newborns to ER for many non-urgent reasons

One of the hardest things about being a new parent is figuring out when babies are so sick they need to go to the emergency room and when worrisome signs or symptoms might actually be perfectly normal, doctors say. Anxious parents bring babies to the ER for all kinds of things that could go either way like goopy eyes, concerns about how the stump from the cut umbilical cord looks, vomiting, strange looking stool, irregular breathing, and jerky or unusual body movements, doctors write in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine. Top Kansas court rules state constitution protects abortion rights

The Kansas Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the state's constitution protects a woman's right to an abortion and upheld an injunction blocking a state law that would have banned a common second trimester abortion procedure. The ruling would protect the right to abortion in Kansas even if the conservative-leaning U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that recognized a right to abortion in the U.S. Constitution. U.S. measles outbreak raises questions about immunity in adults

Adults in the United States who were vaccinated against measles decades ago may need a new dose depending on when they received the shot and their exposure risk, according to public health experts battling the nation’s largest outbreak since the virus was deemed eliminated in 2000. Up to 10 percent of the 695 confirmed measles cases in the current outbreak occurred in people who received one or two doses of the vaccine, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.