Statins can be stopped toward the end of life

By Andrew M. Seaman (Reuters Health) – - Taking people off cholesterol-lowering medications near the end of life is safe and may actually be beneficial, according to a new study. Among people without active heart disease who were expected to live no more than a year, stopping the drugs, known as statins, didn’t increase the number of deaths within 60 days, but did improve quality of life. “We start a lot of medicines, and many of these medicines come with the tagline that ‘you’ll be taking these medicines for the rest of your life,’” said Dr. Amy Abernethy, the study’s senior author from the Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina. The researchers write in JAMA Internal Medicine that drug trials rarely address the issue of when to stop using the treatments. March 23, 2015 at 07:46PM

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Utah brings back firing squads if lethal drugs unavailable

Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed a law on Monday that makes Utah the only U.S. state to authorize the use of firing squads for executions if lethal drugs are not available, his spokesman said. The Republican-sponsored bill, which was passed by the state Senate earlier this month, was introduced amid national concerns about the efficacy of lethal injections. "Those who voiced opposition to this bill are primarily arguing against capital punishment in general and that decision has already been made in our state," Marty Carpenter, spokesman for the Republican governor, said in a statement. Carpenter said the state preferred to use its primary method of lethal injection when a death penalty is issued. March 23, 2015 at 07:35PM

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U.S. funding research of better anthrax vaccine: health officials

By Yasmeen Abutaleb (Reuters) - Government-funded clinical trials are under way of an improved anthrax vaccine requiring fewer doses and that has the potential to boost immunity faster, top health officials said on Monday. The Department of Health and Human Services said it signed a 30 month, $31 million agreement with Maryland-based Emergent Biosolutions Inc to develop a vaccine that would require only two doses to confer immunity. Emergent currently has a Food and Drug Administration-approved vaccine called BioThrax that requires three doses. ... March 23, 2015 at 06:48PM

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Sierra Leone army confines troops to barracks amid political crisis

Sierra Leone's army chief on Monday ordered soldiers to remain in their barracks and warned them to steer clear of a political crisis that has erupted following the controversial dismissal of the West African nation's vice-president. President Ernest Bai Koroma sacked his deputy, Samuel Sam-Sumana, last week, saying he had abandoned his duties by requesting asylum at the U.S. Embassy in the capital Freetown. The ruling All People's Congress had accused the vice-president of creating his own political movement and kicked him out of the party. "Politics is not for a soldier," Major General Samuel Omar Williams told more than 2,000 troops gathered at a military barracks in Freetown. March 23, 2015 at 06:48PM

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Obamacare subsidies likely expanded insurance coverage: report

By Susan Cornwell WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Early evidence suggests that the tax credit subsidies at the core of President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law likely helped expand U.S. health insurance coverage last year, Congress's non-partisan research arm said on Monday. The subsidies - which can be paid by the federal government to insurers in advance to lower monthly insurance premiums - significantly reduced the premium costs, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report. "Surveys GAO identified estimated that the uninsured rate declined significantly among households with incomes eligible for the APTC (Advanced Premium Tax Credit)," the GAO said.

March 23, 2015 at 06:18PM

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Slow Ebola response cost thousands of lives: MSF

By Misha Hussain DAKAR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The slow international response to the West Africa Ebola outbreak created an avoidable tragedy that cost thousands of lives, a leading medical charity said on the one year anniversary of the first confirmed case. The world's worst Ebola epidemic has killed over 10,200 people in the three most affected countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since March 2014 when it was first confirmed in the forest region of Guinea. Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), which first raised the alarm over Ebola, said in a report that everyone from national governments to the World Health Organization (WHO) had created bottlenecks that prevented the epidemic being quickly snuffed out. "The Ebola outbreak has often been described as a perfect storm: a cross-border epidemic in countries with weak public health systems that had never seen Ebola before," Christopher Stokes, MSF's general director, said in the report.

March 23, 2015 at 02:47PM

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Reimburse doctors for helping patients plan end of life care, experts say

By Randi Belisomo WASHINGTON, D.C. (Reuters Health) - - Physician incentives are needed to improve end of life care in the U.S., health experts said Friday at an Institute of Medicine (IOM) forum. The forum convened at the National Academy of Sciences to discuss action on the recommendations of the IOM’s seminal fall report, Dying in America. “Our current system is not equipped to deal with these challenges,” said IOM President Victor Dzau, citing a rising number of elderly with multiple chronic illnesses, too few palliative care services to keep pace with demand, and time pressures that keep providers from having conversations with patients about end of life preferences and values. “We need to make sure that healthcare providers do not shy away from these discussions,” said Senate Aging Committee Chairman Susan Collins (R-Maine). March 23, 2015 at 06:07PM

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