| TORONTO (Canadian Press) -- Women prescribed tamoxifen to prevent a recurrence of breast cancer should avoid taking the antidepressant Paxil and its generic equivalents because of a potentially dangerous drug interaction, a study suggests.
(Associated Press) -- High rates of the most effective type of malaria-fighting drugs sold in three African countries are poor quality -- including nearly half the pills sampled in Senegal -- raising fears of increased drug resistance that could wipe out the last weapon left to battle a disease that kills 1 million people each year, according to a U.S. report released Monday.
BANGKOK (Deutsche Presse-Agentur) -- Eighty-three students at a Bangkok secondary school had to be hospitalized after overdosing on cough suppressant pills that they believed would make them smarter, immune to pain and would whiten skin, media reports said Thursday.
CHICAGO (AP) -- Fish oil pills may be able to save some young people with signs of mental illness from descending into schizophrenia, according to a preliminary but first-of-its-kind study.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A pill to ease a type of mental retardation? An experiment is under way to develop one, aimed at a genetic disorder that might unravel some of the mysteries of autism along the way.
(Associated Press) -- Quickly giving morphine to wounded troops cuts in half the chance they will develop post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a provocative study that suggests a new strategy for preventing the psychological fallout of war.
LONDON (AP) -- The British government apologized Thursday to people who were harmed in the womb when their mothers took the anti-nausea drug Thalidomide.
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (Canadian Press) -- The epicenter of last year's swine flu outbreak has received less than half of the 30 million vaccine doses it ordered last year, the country's health secretary said Tuesday.
(The New York Times News Service) -- When the public pays the bill, who decides whether a pricey new drug is worth the cost?
WASHINGTON (AP) -- In case the prospect of nearly $4,000 in prescription assistance isn't enough to perk up low-income seniors, the government is using '60s singer Chubby Checker to publicize "the twist" in the Medicare drug program.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (The New York Times News Service) -- Sure, Ambien helps you sleep. But sometimes waking up can be a tough pill to swallow.
(NewsRx.com) -- Women participating in the Women's Health Initiative study who reported taking an antidepressant drug had a small but statistically significant increase in the risk of stroke and of death compared with participants not taking antidepressants. The authors of a report in the December 14 Archives of Internal Medicine note that their findings are not conclusive but may signify a need for additional attention to patients' cardiovascular risk factors.
FRANKENSTEIN, Mo. (AP) -- The mystery started the day farmer Russ Kremer got between a jealous boar and a sow in heat.
LANTANA, Fla. (AP) -- It started with a cough, an autumn hack that refused to go away.
PAILIN, Cambodia (AP) - O'treng village doesn't look like the epicenter of anything.
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- More hugs, fewer bugs. Holiday visits have become safer for grandparents thanks to a childhood vaccine that has dramatically curbed infections spread by kids, a new study finds.
CINCINNATI (AP) -- Procter & Gamble Co. is recalling 700,000 packs of Vicks DayQuil capsules because they are not childproof.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal health advisers are recommending the use of an experimental Gilead Sciences drug to treat a form of lung infection.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Drug companies would no longer be able to mine pharmacy records to track which doctors are prescribing their medications, under a proposal unveiled Thursday by two Senate Democrats.
SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- Women with very advanced breast cancer may have a new treatment option. A combination of two drugs that more precisely target tumors significantly extended the lives of women who had stopped responding to other treatments, doctors reported Friday.
SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- New results from a landmark women's health study raise the exciting possibility that bone-building drugs such as Fosamax and Actonel may help prevent breast cancer.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal scientists say AstraZeneca's cholesterol pill Crestor lowers the risk of heart attack, death and stroke in patients without a history of heart disease, though some safety concerns remain.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Food and Drug Administration still hasn't restructured its staff to better monitor drug safety, more than three years after experts recommended key changes in the wake of the Vioxx scandal.
LONDON (AP) - British researchers say there is little evidence Tamiflu stops complications in healthy people who catch the flu, though public health officials contend the swine flu drug reduces flu hospitalizations and deaths.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Pharmaceutical executives laid out plans Friday to prevent the misuse of prescription painkillers, under pressure from regulators trying to stop hundreds of fatal overdoses each year.
(Associated Press) -- Drug giant GlaxoSmithKline says one of its swine flu vaccines has been certified by the World Health Organization, making it available for donors to buy for developing countries.
(McClatchy-Tribune Information Services) -- Concerned that American men may be embracing the same kind of misguided sex-hormone use that brought calamity to women, the government is funding a national study to see whether older men with low testosterone benefit from boosting it.
LONDON (AP) -- People infected with the virus that causes AIDS should start treatment earlier than currently recommended, the World Health Organization said Monday.
HOUSTON (The New York Times News Service) -- From his outsider's vantage point, computer scientist Stephen Wong sees a big problem with drug discovery. It's too costly and too slow.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal health experts on Thursday brushed off lingering safety questions about a popular inhaler drug and suggested it carry bolder benefit claims.
ATLANTA (The New York Times News Service) -- Esther Notrica dreads this time of year when she must review dozens of Medicare prescription drug plans to figure out which one works best for her.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal health officials said Tuesday a popular variety of heartburn medications can interfere with the blood thinner Plavix, a drug taken by millions of Americans to reduce risks of heart attack and stroke.
ORLANDO (USA TODAY) -- It isn't often that a study involving a couple of hundred people shakes up medical science.
(Boston Herald) -- Leslie Cook was losing control of her life one cigarette at time, 20 cigarettes a day.
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) -- A new study raises fresh concerns about Zetia and its cousin, Vytorin -- drugs still taken by millions of Americans to lower cholesterol, despite questions raised last year about how well they work.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal health regulators have found tiny particles of trash in drugs made by biotechnology firm Genzyme.
GENEVA (AP) -- The World Health Organization says doctors shouldn't wait for lab confirmation before giving anti-viral drugs to pregnant women and other at-risk groups with suspected swine flu.
(Associated Press) -- Analysis of a dozen published studies testing possible new uses for a Pfizer Inc. epilepsy drug found that reporting of the results was often misleading, indicating the medicine worked better than internal company documents showed.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Ten years and $2.5 billion in research have found no cures from alternative medicine. Yet these mostly unproven treatments are now mainstream and used by more than a third of all Americans. This is one in an occasional Associated Press series on their use and potential risks.
SAN FRANCISCO (The New York Times News Service) -- As back pain has become an increasingly common ailment in the United States -- and for chronic sufferers, one of the most debilitating -- desperate patients and their doctors have propelled major advancements in the field.
(McClatchy-Tribune Information Services) -- The Food and Drug Administration is investigating companies nationwide that are advertising and selling unauthorized H1N1 products.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Last year pharmaceutical companies spent more than $4 billion urging patients like you to "ask your doctor" about their drugs. But if you want a prescription that won't empty your wallet, while still keeping you well, you might start asking your doctor about drugs you don't see on TV.
MILWAUKEE (Canadian Press) -- Men may protect more than their hearts if they keep cholesterol in line: Their chances of getting aggressive prostate cancer may be lower, new research suggests.
CHICAGO (AP) -- Researchers studying antibiotics in pregnancy have found a surprising link between common drugs used to treat urinary infections and birth defects. Reassuringly, the most-used antibiotics in early pregnancy - penicillins - appear to be the safest.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Independent health advisers begin monitoring safety of the swine flu vaccine on Monday, an extra step the government promised in this year's unprecedented program to watch for possible side effects.
LONDON (AP) -- To fight pneumonia, the world's top killer of children, United Nations officials say they need $39 billion (euro26.35 billion) over the next six years.
(Associated Press) -- Doctors may have a new treatment for swine flu that's already on pharmacy shelves -- cholesterol-lowering statin drugs like Lipitor and Zocor.
DENVER (The New York Times News Service) -- It seemed to Margie McCandless that she was destined to have diabetes.
CHICAGO (AP) -- Children on widely used psychiatric drugs can quickly gain an alarming amount of weight; many pack on nearly 20 pounds and become obese within just 11 weeks, a study found.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Medicare officials are backing off a policy that pushed many doctors to use a $2,000 injectable drug for a potentially blinding eye disorder, over a similar treatment that costs about $50.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- In an Oct. 21 story about drug labels, The Associated Press erroneously described the Novartis drug Zometa. Zometa was approved in 2001 to treat excessive calcium levels, not to treat a form of osteoporosis in cancer patients. Also, the drug was approved only in a 4 milligram dose, not in both 4 milligram and 8 milligram doses. A corrected version of the story appears below.
BEIJING (AP) -- China will give swine flu vaccinations to thousands of Muslims about to make the annual pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia, state media said, as authorities reported the mainland's third death from the illness.
BERLIN (AP) -- A debate over two different swine flu vaccines overshadowed Germany's launch of a public inoculation program against the pandemic on Monday.
TAMPA (The New York Times News Service) -- The University of South Florida is participating in two national studies to find out whether the H1N1 vaccine can protect children and pregnant women who have HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, from also contracting swine flu.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Food and Drug Administration has allowed drugs for cancer and other diseases to stay on the market even when follow-up studies showed they didn't extend patients' lives, say congressional investigators.
ENCINO (The New York Times News Service) -- Hundreds of people came from as far away as San Diego Friday to stand in long lines for swine flu vaccine at the Balboa Sports Complex -- one of the first of 64 free clinics that will open over the next three weeks in Los Angeles County's largest ever vaccination campaign.
(Associated Press) EDITOR'S NOTE: Ten years and $2.5 billion in research have found no cures from alternative medicine. Yet these mostly unproven treatments are now mainstream and used by more than a third of all Americans. This is one in an occasional series examining their use and potential risks.
(Associated Press) -- What to do if menopause makes you miserable?
MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Grappling with low supplies of swine flu vaccines, President Felipe Calderon persuaded drug makers this week to sell him 30 million doses, while 1,000 Mexicans lined up for an experimental vaccine they hope can speed up supplies.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government now hopes to have about 50 million doses of swine flu vaccine out by mid-November and 150 million in December.
SWIFTWATER, Pa. (AP) -- The federal government originally promised 120 million doses of swine flu vaccine by now. Only 13 million have come through.
(Associated Press) -- Federal officials have warned promoters of more than 140 products sold over the Internet about fraudulent claims that they can prevent, treat or diagnose swine flu.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Did you know that Lunesta will help you fall asleep just 15 minutes faster? Or that a higher dose of the osteoporosis drug Zometa could damage a cancer patient's kidneys and raise their risk of death?
CHICAGO (AP) -- Most hospitalized heart failure patients are sent home without widely recommended inexpensive pills, despite a program to get more doctors to follow treatment guidelines, a study suggests.
(Associated Press) -- Fresh results from the world's first successful test of an experimental AIDS vaccine confirm that it is only marginally effective and suggest that its protection against HIV infection may wane over time.
WASHINGTON (AP)-- The people who most want the swine flu vaccine are older people, who will be last in line, says a new Associated Press-GfK poll.
ATLANTA (AP) -- The initial swine flu vaccine doses this week will be the nasal spray version, and arm injections will begin next week to help meet demand, health officials said Tuesday.
CHICAGO (AP) -- Vaccine-like shots to keep cocaine abusers from getting high also helped them fight their addiction in the first successful rigorous study of this approach to treating illicit drug use.
(USA TODAY) -- The first doses of swine flu vaccine arrived Monday as more than half the USA reported widespread flu cases.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The long-awaited first vaccinations against swine flu -- the squirt-in-the-nose kind -- begin early next week in parts of the country, and states are urging people to be patient until more arrives.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal regulators said Thursday an experimental kidney cancer drug from GlaxoSmithKline may cause liver problems, potentially outweighing its ability to slow the disease.
ATLANTA (AP) -- Drug-related deaths outnumber those from motor vehicle accidents in a growing number of states, according to new government data that highlight a shift in the top cause of deaths after disease and illness.
(McClatchy-Tribune Information Services) -- When the first shipments of swine flu vaccine begin arriving in coming weeks, federal officials want only people on priority lists to line up for the first 45 million doses, but there won't be "vaccine police" enforcing it.
CHICAGO (AP) -- More than half a million U.S. children yearly have bad reactions or side effects from widely used medicines that require medical treatment and sometimes hospitalization, new research shows.
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Adults with a common form of leukemia had a better chance of remission if they got a double dose of a long-used cancer drug, two new studies found.
ATLANTA (AP) -- Some pharmacists are seeing a shortage of the children's version of the flu drug Tamiflu.
LONDON (AP) -- People with a genetic susceptibility to colon cancer could cut their chances of developing the disease in half by taking a daily dose of aspirin, researchers said Monday.
ATLANTA (AP) -- One in three teenage girls have rolled up their sleeves for a vaccine against cervical cancer, but vaccination rates vary dramatically between states, according to a federal report released Thursday.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Attention is shifting to the world's five leading flu vaccine makers: How fast are they really producing swine flu vaccine, and just how do they plan to test that it works?
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