Merck says new drug combats heart disease
Merck & Co. says a new type of cholesterol drug reduced heart attacks, deaths and other complications of heart disease in a huge, late-stage study.
Three major drugmakers — Pfizer, Eli Lilly and Roche — have each seen promising drugs of the same type fail after many years and millions of dollars spent on testing.
Merck tested the medicine, anacetrapib, in a study that included 30,000 people.
The Kenilworth, N.J.-based company said it won’t release detailed results until a medical conference in August. That’s standard practice, but Merck raised questions about how well the medicine works by noting the company will consult with outside experts before deciding whether to seek regulatory approval to sell the drug. Don’t drop guard on Zika, CDC warns The Zika virus may not seem as big a threat as last summer but don’t let your guard down — especially if you’re pregnant or trying to be.
While cases of the birth defect-causing virus have dropped sharply from last year’s peak in parts of Latin America and the Caribbean, Zika hasn’t disappeared from the region and remains a threat.
It’s hard to predict how much risk people face in locales with smouldering infection, or if cases might spike again. For now, pregnant women are still being urged not to travel to a country or area that has even a few reported cases of Zika, because the consequences can be disastrous for the brain of a fetus.
“It’s part of the new reality,” said Dr. Martin Cetron of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Those trying to conceive, and their partners, are advised to check with their doctor on how long to wait after visiting a location with an active Zika infection. There are lingering questions, too, about Zika’s risk beyond pregnancy, enough that U.S. scientists just began studying babies in Guatemala to learn if infection after birth also might damage the brain. Avoid pills made from placenta, new moms told Health officials are warning new moms about potential dangers in taking pills made from their placenta, after an Oregon infant’s infection was tied to the practice. Trendy among some mothers, the practice of eating the placenta after giving birth is believed by some to help with postpartum depression, breast milk production and energy levels. It’s taken off in the last decade, touted by celebrity moms and promoted on the Internet. Now tens of thousands of U.S. moms do it, according to a rough estimate by researchers at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
But in an unusual report, a group of doctors and health officials say the capsules appear to have caused an infant’s illness in Portland, Ore., last fall. The authors said moms should avoid taking them, noting that the making of placenta capsules is not regulated and there’s no guarantee they are free of harmful germs.
The researchers include some lab scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A CDC spokeswoman said the agency hasn’t taken a formal position on placenta pills, and that the warning was the authors’ conclusion. No benefit from drug in doping scandal, study suggests The blood booster at the heart of the Lance Armstrong doping scandal does not improve real-world cycling performance, according to the most rigorous study yet of how the protein EPO affects athletes.
The results, published in the journal Lancet Haematology, may convince some to pay more attention to the harms of supposed performance-enhancing drugs by punching holes in the myths surrounding them, researchers said.
Dutch scientists staged a bike race up a mountain to study whether erythropoietin (EPO) lives up to its reputation, transporting a large group of avid cyclists to southern France in a tour bus and putting on a gruelling day of cycling for them.
“It was hectic and stressful, but also a lot of fun and exhilarating,” said Jules Heuberger of the Centre for Human Drug Research in Leiden, Netherlands, who led the effort and describes himself as “an active, fanatic cyclist.”
Previous studies of EPO in sports have been flawed, Heuberger said. Participants weren’t trained athletes, knew they were getting EPO, or testing was limited to short bursts of strength and endurance.