Pharmaceutical companies and public health advocates worldwide are keeping an eye on a legal case in India, in which pharmaceutical giant Bayer is appealing a decision by the Indian patent controller to override the company’s monopoly on its cancer drug Nexavar.
If upheld, the decision will allow an Indian company to produce and sell the drug for the equivalent of $173 U.S. dollars a month, the Financial Times reports.
Bayer’s pricing would ...
continue reading...
According to a Reuters story, German drug manufacturer Bayer is seeking European approval of a contraceptive skin patch.
The story notes that Bayer’s main oral contraceptive brand, Yasmin, has generated controversy over health risks. The company has so far agreed to pay a combined $400 million to settle almost one third of about 6,000 legal claims in the U.S. that Yasmin caused ...
continue reading...
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends IUDs or hormonal implants as the best birth control for girls, according to the Miami Herald.
The Miami Herald notes that both types of contraception are more invasive and expensive than birth control pills, requiring a doctor to put them in place, which may explain why pills are still the most popular form of contraception in the U.S.
But birth control pills are sometimes ...
continue reading...According to a story by Channel 6 Action News out of Philadelphia, there’s been an alarming increase in the number of relatively young people suffering strokes.
The story cites figures by the Center for Disease Control, which found the rate of people hospitalized for stroke between the ages of 15 and 44 has gone up 37 percent between 1995 and 2008.
The report includes an interview with a local woman, Kathy Doyle, ...
continue reading...A study published in the journal Lancet finds that job-related stress increases the risk of a heart attack.
According to an ABC News article about the study, a team of European researchers examined a total of 13 previous studies conducted between 1986 and 2006 evaluating job strain as a risk factor for heart attack and death.
Researchers found that people with highly demanding jobs who have little freedom to make decisions are ...
continue reading...A recent study finds that eating chocolate may help reduce the incidence of stroke in men, the Los Angeles Times reports.
According to the study, men who had the highest weekly consumption of chocolate — about 63 grams per week, or just a little more than 2 ounces — reduced their likelihood of suffering a stroke by 17 percent. The report also cites the results of a meta-analysis of chocolate consumption ...
continue reading...
