CNNThu, 24 Apr 2008 13:32 UTC
A 14-year-old Japanese girl killed herself by mixing laundry detergent with cleanser, releasing fumes that also sickened 90 people in her apartment house, police said Thursday as they grappled with a spate of similar suicides.
Federal drug regulators believe that a contaminant detected in a crucial blood thinner that has caused 81 deaths was added deliberately, something the Food and Drug Administration has only hinted at previously.
Federal inspectors documented unwanted "fibers" on the stoppers of vaccine vials at Merck & Co. Inc.'s vast vaccine plant in Montgomery County.
They also found instances of contaminated children's vaccines and complaints that were not always investigated at the West Point plant.
It is perhaps the biggest drug scandal of recent years. Before Merck withdrew Vioxx in 2004, the popular painkiller was linked to heart attacks in tens of thousands of people. Now researchers have alleged that Merck knew of the dangers years earlier, but tweaked statistics and hid data so that regulators remained in the dark.
Thierry Leveque
ReutersWed, 06 Feb 2008 11:16 UTC
French authorities have opened a formal investigation into two managers from drugs groups GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi Pasteur over a vaccination campaign in the 1990s, a judicial source said late on Thursday.
Nassau County officials are looking at a potential link between children vaccines and autism.
Legislator David Mejias and Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg are meeting today with parents of autistic children who claim the combination of vaccines given to young children can cause autism.
An article published in the April issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease presents a detailed characterization of a new drug discovery tool for Alzheimer's disease. It demonstrates that an abnormal form of tau protein, as it occurs in Alzheimer's disease, can be produced in very simple cell models in an unambiguous way. Most importantly, it also shows an example of a chemical compound, found in nature, which is highly effective to completely suppress the abnormal changes of tau.
All Italian dairy produce, including mozzarella, is safe for consumption, Italy's health and agriculture ministries said in a joint statement on Tuesday.
A temporary ban on buffalo mozzarella cheese, one of Italy's much-loved products and primary exports, was introduced in late March after high levels of dioxins - chemical contaminants which may cause cancer - were found in samples of buffalo milk.
Researchers at the University of Southampton's School of Medicine have discovered how a gene, which is linked to susceptibility to asthma, contributes to the development or the progression of the disease. The findings of this new study may lead to novel treatments for asthma, as well as other diseases such as cancer and atherosclerosis or thickening of the arteries.
Will Dunham
ReutersMon, 28 Apr 2008 13:24 UTC
Washington - Researchers have pinpointed a protein in a key human immune system cells needed for the AIDS virus to infect them, and found that turning it off can greatly slow down the deadly virus.
Inactivating a protein called ITK in immune system cells called T cells reduces HIV's ability to enter these cells and replicate itself, the researchers said on Monday.