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News, Page 30

FDA approves Otsuka and Lundbeck’s schizophrenia treatment

(Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Danish drugmaker H. Lundbeck A/S and Japan’s Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co Ltd’s Rexulti, an anti-psychotic drug used to treat schizophrenia. The drug, brexpiprazole, was also approved as an adjunctive therapy for major depressive disorder (MDD), a serious psychiatric condition that can lead to persistent feelings of sadness, frustration or anger, the health regulator said on Friday. Otsuka Pharmaceutical is a unit of Otsuka Holdings Co Ltd. The agency based its decision on seven clinical trials, three of which examined the drug’s effect on schizophrenia and four testing it as an adjunctive therapy for MDD.

Investing in science can be ‘the game changer’ for development: experts

By Magdalena Mis LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Investing up to 3.5 percent of a nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) in science, technology and innovation can be “the game changer” for development, leading experts said on Thursday. Science, technology and innovation (STI) can help alleviate poverty, reduce inequalities, increase income and improve health, scientists advising U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on sustainable development said. “If countries wish to break the poverty cycle and achieve post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals, they will have to set up ambitious national minimum target investments for STI,” the 26-member Scientific Advisory Board said.

U.S. plans changes to bird-flu response after criticism

The U.S. Agriculture Department wants to improve its handling of the nation's worst-ever outbreak of bird flu in poultry after coming under criticism for a slow and confusing response. The USDA is aiming to assign one person to communicate with each infected farm during the entire time the facility is affected by the deadly virus, John Clifford, the chief U.S. veterinary officer, said at a U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee hearing on Tuesday. Currently, a USDA representative deals with an infected farm for a period of about three to four weeks as part of a rotation, Clifford told lawmakers.

Suspected Congo Ebola victims test negative for the virus

Six hunters in the Democratic Republic of Congo who fell sick and were suspected to have Ebola have tested negative for the virus, the health minister said on Saturday. The government and World Health Organization investigated a possible outbreak about 270 km (170 miles) northeast of the capital when the hunters developed Ebola-like symptoms after eating an antelope that appeared to be sick when they killed it. “All of the samples are negative … There is not an Ebola epidemic,” Health Minister Felix Kabange said in an interview on state-run television.

VA hospital that once treated Civil War veterans could close

HOT SPRINGS, S.D. (AP) — Perched atop a bluff in the remote Black Hills, a veterans hospital built of thick blocks of pink sandstone and topped with red-tiled roofs in a Spanish mission style overlooks the tiny town of Hot Springs, South Dakota, and has provided recovering soldiers a bucolic haven for more than a century.

Workers at Kenya’s main port strike over higher health costs

MOMBASA (Reuters) – More than 2,000 workers at East Africa’s biggest port in Kenya's coastal city Mombasa went on strike on Wednesday protesting an increase in the amount they will have to pay for state-run health insurance. The port, the biggest in the region, handles imports such as fuel for Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, South Sudan, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia. Interruption of the port activities threatens regional business which heavily relies on cargo passing through the trade gateway.

Bristol Palin says unmarried pregnancy was planned

(Reuters) – Bristol Palin, the daughter of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and an advocate of sexual abstinence before marriage, says in a blog post that her second out-of-wedlock pregnancy was “actually planned”. Just over a month ago, the former governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee announced that her daughter's planned marriage to Medal-of-Honor winner Dakota Meyer had been called off. “This pregnancy was actually planned,” Bristol Palin wrote on Sunday in a blog post entitled “My Little Blessing”.

Taiwan probes water park fire as tally of injured put at 498

By J.R. Wu and Pichi Chuang TAIPEI (Reuters) – The number of party revelers injured in a fire at a Taiwan water park was put at 498 on Sunday as authorities began investigating the cause, suspected to be a sudden explosion of a colored powder thrown on those attending the party. The figure released late Sunday by local authorities was lower than an earlier estimate of 519 injured due to patients being transferred between hospitals and being double-counted, a government official said. The blaze, which broke out at around 8.30 p.m. at the Formosa Fun Coast water park on the outskirts of the capital, Taipei, is suspected to have been caused by an explosion of the colored powder, local government official Lin Chieh-yu told Reuters.

Meet the Pint-Sized Vaccine Supporter Who Gives a ‘Damn’ About Vaccine Bill

A controversial California bill to end personal-belief exemptions for students who are unvaccinated has been helped by one very important, yet pint-size supporter. Rhett Krawitt, 7, became one of the faces for the new bill aimed at raising vaccination rates by ending personal-belief exemptions for students at California schools. “Vaccines save lives,” he told reporters before taking a petition to end personal-belief exemptions with 30,000 signatures to California Gov. Jerry Brown’s office earlier this week.