Health News Roundup: Abortion question in US court; team sports and childhood adversity

Supreme Court avoids abortion question, upholds fetal burial measure

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday sent a mixed message on abortion, refusing to consider reinstating Indiana's ban on abortions performed because of fetal disability or the sex or race of the fetus while upholding the state's requirement that fetal remains be buried or cremated after the procedure is done. Both provisions were part of a Republican-backed 2016 law signed by Vice President Mike Pence when he was Indiana's governor. The action by the justices comes at a time when numerous Republican-governed states including Alabama are approving restrictive abortion laws that the Supreme Court may be called upon to rule on in the future.

Allergan to recall textured breast implants in Canada

Allergan Plc said on Tuesday it will voluntarily recall and stop the sale of its Biocell textured breast implants in Canada after the country's health agency suspended the company's licenses for the implants, citing the increased risk of cancer. The Botox-maker in December took its textured breast implants off the market in Europe after a French regulatory body ordered a recall.

Can team sports help teens overcome childhood adversity?

Children who suffer adverse experiences like abuse and neglect may be less likely to have mental health problems in adulthood if they play team sports as teenagers, a U.S. study suggests. Adverse childhood experiences, commonly called ACEs, can include witnessing parents fight or go through a divorce, having a parent with a mental illness or substance abuse problem, or suffering from sexual, physical or emotional abuse. ACEs have been linked to what's known as toxic stress, or wear and tear on the body that leads to physical and mental health problems that often continue from one generation to the next.

WHO counts down Africa polio clock despite fears of new outbreak

Africa could be declared free of endemic "wild" polio early next year if a strain last seen in Nigeria almost three years ago does not resurface, the World Health Organization's Africa director said on Tuesday. Africa's last case of wild polio was recorded in Nigeria in August 2016. The country can now begin the months of paperwork needed before declaring that the virus is no longer circulating there, WHO Africa Regional Director Matshidiso Moeti told Reuters.

Missouri may become only U.S. state with no legal abortion provider

Missouri is poised this week to become the only U.S. state without access to legal abortions as public health officials may refuse to renew the license of the last clinic in Missouri to perform the procedure, Planned Parenthood said on Tuesday. The state's Department of Health and Senior Services director Randall Williams told the St. Louis Post Dispatch that the state will make a decision by Friday on whether to renew the license of Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood in St. Louis, the only clinic in the state that performs abortions.

Overdose victim's father to testify in Oklahoma opioid trial of J&J

The father of a university football player who died of a drug overdose is expected to testify on Wednesday on the second day of trial in a lawsuit by the state of Oklahoma accusing the drugmaker Johnson & Johnson of fueling the U.S. opioid epidemic. The trial in a state court in Norman, Oklahoma, in the first to result from more than 2,000 similar lawsuits against opioid manufacturers nationally.

U.S. dentists prescribe opioids far more often than British counterparts

Dentists in the U.S. prescribe opioids at a rate 70 times higher than dentists in England, a new study finds. Moreover, the types of opioids prescribed by U.S. dentists are more likely to be those "with a high potential for abuse, such as oxycodone," researchers reported in JAMA Network Open.

Overweight teen boys have a higher risk of heart muscle damage as adults

Men who were overweight as teens may be more likely to develop a rare type of heart muscle damage that can cause heart failure than men who maintained a healthy weight during adolescence, a Swedish study suggests. Researchers examined data on height, weight and fitness levels from more than 1.6 million men who enlisted in compulsory military service in Sweden between 1969 and 2005 when they were 18 or 19 years old. At the start, about 10 per cent were overweight and about 2 per cent were obese.

Bayer to work with Foundation Medicine on selecting cancer patients

Bayer struck a collaboration deal with Roche's Foundation Medicine Inc. to develop test kits for genetic sequencing of tumour cells to identify cancer patients that benefit from Bayer's Vitrakvi drug. Vitrakvi, which Bayer acquired from Eli Lilly's Loxo Oncology, has been shown to shrink tumours in about 1 per cent of patients across a range of 24 different cancer types. Identifying those patients requires advanced genetic diagnostic tools.

Nursing facilities often discharge patients when co-pays kick in

Skilled nursing facilities in the U.S. often discharge Medicare patients before daily co-payments kick in, according to a new U.S. study that suggests some patients may be sent home for financial reasons before they're medically ready to leave. Medicare, the U.S. health program for the elderly and disabled, pays the entire bill for post-hospital care provided by skilled nursing facilities for the first 20 days within a benefit period, researchers note in JAMA Internal Medicine. After that, most patients become responsible for a daily co-payment of more than $150.