Researchers studying a degenerative disease in former athletes say 11 of 12 brains of deceased former NFL players tested over the past year showed signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, continuing a trend they've been tracking.
Malaria deaths worldwide have fallen by 60 percent since 2000, the UN said Thursday, with improved diagnostic tests and the massive distribution of mosquito nets aiding dramatic progress against the disease. Fifteen years ago, an estimated 262 million malaria cases killed nearly 840,000 people. Projections for 2015 indicate that some 214 million cases are likely to cause 438,000 deaths, according to a joint report from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations children's agency (UNICEF).
By Katy Migiro NAIROBI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – One million Africans will catch malaria this year because they live near a large dam and, at a time of booming dam construction on the continent, greater efforts must be made to protect people from the killer disease, a study said on Friday. Almost 80 major new dams are due to be built in sub-Saharan Africa over the next few years, leading to an additional 56,000 malaria cases a year, the study in Malaria Journal predicted. “While dams clearly bring many benefits — contributing to economic growth, poverty alleviation and food security — adverse malaria impacts need to be addressed or they will undermine the sustainability of Africa’s drive for development,” the paper's lead author, Solomon Kibret of Australia's University of New England, said in a statement.
By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) – Pfizer's stop-smoking drug Chantix does not raise risks of heart attack or depression, contrary to previous reports, and should be recommended to more smokers wanting to quit, scientists said on Monday. In a study tracking 150,000 smokers in England for 6 months, researchers found that patients who took Chantix, known generically as varenicline and marketed as Champix in Europe, were no more likely to suffer a heart attack than those using nicotine replacement therapy or another quit-smoking drug.
By Nigam Prusty NEW DELHI (Reuters) – The Indian government approved a long-awaited program to equalize pension payments for retired military personnel despite it being a “huge fiscal burden,” defense minister Manohar Parrikar said on Saturday. The program, known as “One Rank One Pension”, or OROP, will ensure uniform pension payments to ex-servicemen who served at the same rank and for the same amount of time, regardless of the year they retired, among other measures. Veterans in India have been fighting for reforms to their pension packages for years.
Advocacy groups have poured millions of dollars into legalizing both recreational and medical marijuana in states across the country.
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. prosecutors have charged nine people over their alleged roles in a hacking scheme to obtain corporate press releases before they were made public, which they said generated more than $30 million of illegal trading profit.
Over whisky, wine and sandwiches, families of the murder victims of James Holmes reflected on the Colorado movie massacre trial and said about half of them had opposed the prosecution’s decision to seek a death penalty for the 27-year-old.
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — The World Health Organization says new Ebola cases are in the single digits for a second week in a row, showing that contact tracing efforts are yielding results.
An outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease has infected at least 31 in New York City and health officials are racing to figure out the cause. The deaths of two patients who also had Legionnaire's disease are being investigated by health officials. Officials from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene are combing the center of the outbreak in the South Bronx to search for the source of the dangerous outbreak.