HEALTH (ALT)

KWN HEALTH

HEALTH (MSM)

Activist plans Earth Day swim in polluted New York City canal

By Sebastien Malo NEW YORK (Reuters) – An environmental activist planned on Wednesday to swim nearly two miles in a New York City canal described by the top U.S. environmental agency as among the nation’s “most extensively contaminated” bodies of water. Christopher Swain, a clean-water activist, said his swim in the Gowanus Canal aims to mark Earth Day and is an effort to press for speedier cleaning of the notoriously

Worry may drive low-risk cancer patients to want double mastectomy

By Kathryn Doyle (Reuters Health) – Half of women with cancer in one breast – but no gene mutations that increase their risk – are interested in removing their healthy breast to avoid a second cancer there, a small survey finds. Women with less cancer knowledge and greater worry about developing a new tumor were most likely to want the preventive removal of the healthy breast. But after talking to

Myanmar population control law threatens minorities: rights group

By Kieran Guilbert LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Myanmar’s religious and ethnic minorities may be targeted, abused and suppressed by a proposed population control law which could be a serious setback for the country’s maternal health advances, according to a U.S.-based human rights group. The bill introduces the practice of birth spacing, requiring women to wait three years between pregnancies, which can curb maternal and child deaths, the Physicians for

Novo launches Saxenda in US, sees more launches in 2015

Novo Nordisk has launched its Saxenda obesity drug in the United States, it said on Wednesday, a long-awaited milestone that will provide a new revenue stream for the Danish drugmaker. Sydbank analyst Soren Lontoft Hansen said the price was as expected because it has the same active ingredient as Novo’s Victoza- a diabetes drug used to treat obesity directly.

Almost half Vanuatu people lack clean water, month after cyclone: UNICEF

By Magdalena Mis LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – More than 100,000 people in Vanuatu have no clean drinking water, a month after a monster cyclone struck the tiny Pacific nation, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Wednesday. Two thirds of the archipelago’s water and sanitation infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed and most wells are contaminated, UNICEF said in a statement. “There is water but quality is not

Balding German man refused free wig

Baldness among older men is not a medical condition requiring health insurance companies to cover a toupee or wig, a German federal court ruled Wednesday, turning down a 76-year-old man’s bid for false hair. The man from the western town of Contwig, who has suffered from a lack of scalp hair as well as eyebrows and eyelashes since 1983, took his case against his insurance company to the Federal Social

EU proposes GM opt-out for members, angering pro and anti-GM camps

By Philip Blenkinsop BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Commission proposed on Wednesday a new law allowing individual EU countries to restrict or prohibit imported genetically modified crops even if they have been approved by the bloc as a whole. The proposal covering GM crops in human food and animal feed upset trading partners, notably the United States, which wants Europe to open its doors fully to U.S. GM crops as