Check-up MED

LONDON (Reuters) - Bayer's acne pill Diane 35 and its generic versions are safe to use in certain women when other options have failed, the European Medicines Agency said on Friday. Following a formal safety review, conducted at the request of French authorities, the agency concluded that the benefits outweighed the risks - provided measures were taken to minimize the chance of blood clots forming in veins and arteries. ...

PARIS (Reuters) - Sanofi said it would overhaul rather than exit its Toulouse research site, as it seeks to break an impasse with the French government which opposed the drugmaker's reorganization plans and the loss of jobs. Sanofi has been regrouping its research operations around the world into regional hubs and closing some laboratories to cut costs as it grapples with the impact on revenues of patent loss on several top-selling drugs. Chief Executive Chris Viehbacher plans to move research facilities in France to Paris, Lyon and Strasbourg, while closing other sites and cutting jobs. ...

In general, digestive diseases are hidden in the bathroom. You don't talk about anything that happens there unless it's with your spouse or a close friend.

What do you do after you’ve survived six strokes, beat cancer twice and suffered from osteoporosis, arthritis and diabetes? If you’re 79-year-old Carolyn Meiselbach, you go skydiving. Of course. Meiselbach said she leaped into the upstate New York sky last month to settle some unfinished...        

BEIJING (Reuters) - A system of donor cards indicating consent for organ transplants will not work in China as families will insist on having the final say, and many people see nothing wrong in using organs from executed prisoners, an official said on Friday. Nearly 1.5 million people in China need transplants every year, but only 10,000 can get organs, according to the Health Ministry. ...

Less cancer treatment may be better, and being in good physical shape may help keep cancer away, according to the latest research being presented at the largest convergence of cancer experts worldwide.

"How much did you weigh when you were born?" Dr. Alfred Brann asks the first time we talk.

We all know the odds. But broke, unemployed, unhappy or all three -- six numbers have the power to change your life.

Fracking Can Be Done Safely, but Will It Be?

BEIJING (Reuters) - Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has taken inspiration from fears in China about milk safety for his latest work of art, a huge map of China made out of milk powder tins appearing at an exhibition in Hong Kong which opens on Friday. Ai, whose 81-day detention in 2011 sparked an international outcry, has regularly criticized the government for what he sees as its flouting of the rule of law and the rights of citizens. ...

GENEVA (AP) — The World Health Organization says a yellow fever booster vaccination given 10 years after the initial shot isn't necessary.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The organic food industry is gaining clout on Capitol Hill, prompted by rising consumer demand and its entry into traditional farm states. But that isn't going over well with everyone in Congress.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - More than 20 South African boys have died over the past week during coming of age rituals, police said on Thursday, and they blamed botched circumcisions as the likely cause of death. Northern Mpumalanga province's police department has opened 22 murder cases but no arrests have been made so far, spokesman Colonel Leonard Hlathi said. Every year in South Africa, boys aged 10 to 15 years from several of the country's tribal groups are circumcised in traditional "initiation rituals". The ceremonies usually take place over a number of weeks in remote rural areas. ...

By Richard Cowan and Rachelle Younglai WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Prospects for passage of a major immigration bill improved on Thursday when a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House of Representatives declared they had reached a tentative deal, resolving disputes that had threatened to torpedo negotiations. The breakthrough came at the end of a two-hour private meeting of seven Republican and Democratic negotiators. The eighth negotiator in this so-called House Gang of Eight was unavailable after undergoing surgery on Wednesday. ...

PARIS (Reuters) - French drugmaker Sanofi said a late-stage Phase III trial of a drug designed to treat myelofibrosis led to positive results. Myelofibrosis is a rare, life-threatening condition that involves abnormal blood cell production and scarring in the bone marrow. "Patients with myelofibrosis in advanced stages are desperately ill and in need of treatments that will improve their outcomes," Debasish Roychowdhury, head of Sanofi Oncology, said in a statement on Friday. "Now we are planning regulatory filings with authorities to make this medicine available for patients. ...

By Sharon Begley NEW YORK (Reuters) - The long-awaited, controversial new edition of the bible of psychiatry can be characterized by many numbers: its 947 pages, its $199 price tag, its more than 300 maladies (from "dependent personality disorder" and "voyeuristic disorder" to "delayed ejaculation," "kleptomania" and "intermittent explosive disorder"), each limning the potential woes of being human. ...

By Keith Coffman DENVER (Reuters) - The judge who will hear the capital murder case against accused Colorado theater gunman James Holmes has agreed to hear arguments on the constitutionality of Colorado's insanity defense law in death penalty cases. Arapahoe County District Judge Carlos Samour Jr. ruled on Thursday that he will consider a defense motion that argues the law is unconstitutional because it bars Holmes from calling his own mental-health experts at sentencing if he refuses to cooperate with court-appointed psychiatrists. ...

SEATTLE (AP) — Officials in Washington state took their first stab at setting rules for the state's new marijuana industry Thursday, nearly eight months after voters here legalized pot for adults.

By Richard Cowan and Rachelle Younglai WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives trying to write an immigration bill met on Thursday in a last-ditch attempt to resolve their differences over a temporary worker program and healthcare benefits for illegal immigrants. The group of eight Democratic and Republican lawmakers has been attempting to craft a bill to overhaul the immigration system and deal with the millions of immigrants living illegally in the United States. ...

By Jonathan Kaminsky OLYMPIA, Washington (Reuters) - After months of study, the Washington state agency charged with overseeing the first-of-its-kind recreational cannabis market released its draft rules for the industry on Thursday. Under the proposed guidelines issued by the Washington State Liquor Control Board, licenses to grow, process and sell the marijuana would each cost $1,000 per year - in addition to a $250 application fee - with growers and processors barred from doubling as retailers. ...