These days, it's a little intimidating if you want to try yoga. Never mind that it's always been a little bewildering watching someone float into a headstand when you can barely move your neck. These days, with “impressive” poses everywhere on social media, that one Instagram shot of a yogi doing a handstand on the edge of a cliff might turn…
World trade negotiators seeking to eliminate tariffs on information technology (IT) products agreed over the weekend to expand the list of items covered. Participants said the 54 nations had struck a tentative deal to expand to about 200 the IT products on which tariffs would be dropped. The list had an annual trade value of some $1 trillion, the World Trade Organization said late on Saturday.
By Paul Carrel and Michelle Martin GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, Germany (Reuters) – Protesters clashed with police in the German resort town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen on Saturday as thousands demonstrated against a meeting of Group of Seven (G7) leaders that starts on Sunday at a nearby luxury hotel. Scuffles first broke out as the demonstrators, some throwing bottles, faced off with riot police in a narrow lane of quaint Alpine houses on the edge of the town. Occasional clashes followed as the demonstrators snaked their way back through the town.
By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO (Reuters) – Patients with colon and other cancers who have a specific defect in genes needed for DNA repair are far more likely to respond to a new class of drugs such as Merck & Co’s Keytruda, which enlist the immune system to attack tumors, a new study has shown. The small study, financed not by Big Pharma but by swimmers who raised charitable donations, tested Keytruda in patients with advanced colon and rectal cancers and found 92 percent of patients with the genetic defect had their disease controlled compared with 16 percent who did not carry the defect. The findings, announced on Friday at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting in Chicago, point to a new way to predict who will respond to the treatments, which are known as PD-1 inhibitors and can cost $150,000 a year.
On May 24 last year a pregnant woman and an older housewife staggered into Kenema hospital in eastern Sierra Leone and were diagnosed within a day as the country's first Ebola cases. Both women had attended the funeral of a widely-respected faith healer known as Mendinor, whose “powers” were renowned on both sides of Sierra Leone's border with Guinea. The grandmother, whose real name was Finda Nyuma, had been treating sick patients in her home village, a diamond-mining town just a few hours' walk from Gueckedou in Guinea, where the outbreak began in December 2013.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A man is suing Blue Bell, saying he contracted listeria-related meningitis after eating ice cream produced by the company.
The global pharmaceutical industry should set up a $2.0 billion (1.8-billion euro) global innovation fund to help kickstart research into developing more resistant antibiotics, experts said on Thursday. The report was by the British government appointed Review on Antimicrobial Resistance committee, which has warned that drug-resistant microbes could kill 10 million people a year worldwide by 2050. “We need to kickstart drug development to make sure the world has the drugs it needs,” the review's author, economist Jim O'Neill, told the BBC. O'Neill, who used to work at Goldman Sachs investment bank, has also warned that antimicrobial resistance — when bugs become immune to existing drugs — could cost $100 trillion in lost economic output.
By Ben Hirschler LONDON (Reuters) – AstraZeneca is diving deeper into personalized healthcare with two projects that move the concept beyond cancer into respiratory disorders and heart disease. Personalized or precision medicine, which tailors treatment to a patient's genetic profile, is an increasing focus for drug companies, especially after an initiative from U.S. President Barack Obama in January. “Up to now the science of personalized healthcare has been slower to reach those common disease areas such as cardiovascular and respiratory disease.” To redress the balance, AstraZeneca said on Wednesday it had signed two deals, one with Abbott Laboratories for a diagnostic test to accompany an experimental asthma drug and another with Canadian scientists on genes associated with heart disease.
Patrick Roark lost consciousness while driving through Iowa, but his 15-year-old son was able to put the car in park until help arrived.
Welsh rugby league player Danny Jones died on Sunday after suffering a suspected cardiac arrest during an English third-tier match. The Keighley Cougars player, 29, collapsed after being replaced early in the game and was treated by the match doctor and paramedics at the ground before being taken to hospital, where he later passed away. Rugby Football League Chief Operating Officer Ralph Rimmer said in a statement: “It is always devastating when someone so young dies in these circumstances. “Danny was a popular and talented Rugby League player, having played at the highest level with the Wales National team and playing over 12 seasons for Keighley Cougars and Halifax.” The match was abandoned after 16 minutes.