EMEA Health and Science Correspondent
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Oct 14, 2012

Children with ADHD say stimulant drugs help them

LONDON (Reuters) – Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) who take stimulants such as Ritalin tend to feel the drugs help them control their behavior and do not turn them into “robots” as many skeptics assume, a study found on Monday.

The research, which for the first time asked children taking ADHD drugs what they felt about their treatment and its effects, found that many said medication helped them manage their impulsivity and make better decisions.

“With medication, it’s not that you’re a different person. You’re still the same person, but you just act a little better,” said Angie, an 11-year-old from the United States who took part in the study and was quoted in a report about its findings.

Oct 12, 2012

Outbreak of dengue fever hits island of Madeira

LONDON (Reuters) – Eighteen people are confirmed to be suffering from dengue fever in the Portuguese archipelago of Madeira and another 191 probably have the mosquito-borne disease which is also called “breakbone fever” because of the severe pain it can cause.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) which monitors disease in the European Union, said the outbreak was “significant but not entirely unexpected” given that the most efficient carriers of the disease, mosquitoes known as Aedes aegypti, have an established presence in Madeira.

“Portuguese public health authorities are implementing control measures to reduce the risk of sustained transmission locally, the export of infected vectors from the island, and to minimize the impact on the affected population,” it said.

Oct 10, 2012

Trader turned neuroscientist explores risky highs

LONDON (Reuters) – When John Coates was on a winning streak during his days as a trader at Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs, the narcotic-like “high” he experienced was so powerful he was determined to find out more.

So after 13 years on trading floors on Wall Street he moved to the neuroscience labs of Rockefeller University in New York and of Britain’s Cambridge University.

Here, the trader turned neuroscientist has been bent on uncovering the brain biology behind that high, what it did to him, and what it’s probably doing to those he left behind.

Oct 8, 2012

Scientists find blood signatures for aggressive prostate cancer

LONDON (Reuters) – Scientists have found two distinct genetic “signatures” for prostate cancer that may help doctors predict which patients have aggressive tumors, and designed experimental blood tests to read those genetic signs like barcodes.

The teams, whose work was published on Tuesday in the Lancet Oncology journal, believe tests developed from the signatures could eventually be used to tell which patients need immediate treatment.

“Prostate cancer is a very diverse disease – some people live with it for years without symptoms but for others it can be aggressive and life-threatening,” said Johann de Bono, who led a study at Britain’s Institute of Cancer Research. “So it’s vital we develop reliable tests to tell the different types apart.”

Oct 8, 2012

Analysis: Reprogrammed cells open new medical window

LONDON (Reuters) – The Nobel Prize-winning discovery of how to reprogram ordinary cells to behave like embryonic stem cells offers a way to skirt around ethical problems with human embryos, but safety concerns make their future use in treating disease uncertain.

While researchers have already applied the scientific breakthroughs of Britain’s John Gurdon and Japan’s Shinya Yamanaka to study how diseases develop, making such cells into new treatments will involve a lot more checks.

Stem cells act as the body’s master cells, providing the source material for all other cells. They could transform medicine by regenerating tissue for diseases ranging from blindness to Parkinson’s disease.

Oct 1, 2012

Roche’s breast cancer franchise boosted by trial data

LONDON (Reuters) – Roche, the world’s biggest maker of cancer drugs, got a boost on Monday as results of trials that will protect sales of its breast cancer drug Herceptin coincided with data showing a new drug in the franchise helped patients live longer.

Two trials on Roche’s blockbuster Herceptin wiped out a risk that they could have indicated a shorter period of treatment than the current recommendation of one year – a finding that could have cost up to $1.5 billion in sales.

A third trial comparing Roche’s experimental drug TDM-1 with a standard cocktail of drugs in patients with an aggressive form of advanced breast cancer showed the new drug helped patients live more than five months longer.

Oct 1, 2012

Cancer trials show one year on Roche’s Herceptin is best

LONDON (Reuters) – Extending treatment with Roche’s breast cancer drug Herceptin to two years from the one year current standard is not worth while, trial data showed on Monday, but shortening treatment to six months also looks unlikely to benefit patients.

The results of two keenly-watched studies on Herceptin, known generically as trastuzumab, banish a downside risk for Roche, but also limit its ability to squeeze more value out of the lucrative drug before it loses its patent from 2014.

Analysts had said the Swiss drugmaker could lose up to $1.5 billion in revenue from the blockbuster medicine in the medium term if six months treatment had been shown to be just as effective.

Sep 29, 2012

WHO says only severely ill should be tested for new virus

LONDON (Reuters) – Doctors should only test people for a new virus if they are very ill in hospital with a respiratory infection, have been in Qatar or Saudi Arabia and test negative for common forms of pneumonia and infections, the World Health Organisation said on Saturday.

The newly discovered virus from the same family as SARS has so far been confirmed in only two cases worldwide, one in a 60-year-old Saudi man who died from his infections, and another in a man from Qatar who is critically ill in a London hospital.

In updated guidance issued six days after it put out a global alert about the new virus, the WHO said suspected cases should be strictly defined to limit the need to test people with milder symptoms.

Sep 28, 2012

Finding a new virus: Spit, sequencing and serendipity

LONDON (Reuters) – Professor Maria Zambon’s first thought when her team of scientists matched a virus from a patient’s sputum to one never before seen in humans was: “Oh no, this is going to be tricky.”

In her north London laboratory last Saturday, an email came in from another specialist virology team in The Netherlands with a 99.5 percent match to a virus from the same family as SARS, a disease that emerged in 2002 and killed 800 people. Her thoughts moved swiftly to the risk of an international outbreak.

“Of course it’s really interesting scientifically to get this kind of result, but you also think about what it might mean,” she said in an interview. “Is this the tip of an iceberg? Or is this an isolated event?”

Sep 28, 2012

New virus not spreading easily between people: WHO

LONDON (Reuters) – A new and potentially fatal virus from the same family as SARS which was discovered in a patient in London last week appears not to spread easily form person to person, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday.

In an update on the virus, which has so far killed a Saudi man and made a patient from Qatar critically ill, the United Nations health agency said it was working with international partners to understand the public health risk better.

“From the information available thus far, it appears that the novel coronavirus cannot be easily transmitted from person-to-person,” it said in a statement.

    • About Kate

      "I cover health and science news for the region of Europe, Middle East and Africa -- from flu pandemics to the newest planetary discovery to the latest drug and research developments. I joined Reuters in 1993 and worked in London, Amsterdam and Frankfurt before moving to BBC television to work on European politics for Newsnight for 2 years. Since returning to Reuters, I have also worked as a parliamentary correspondent in Westminster and on the main news desk of the London bureau."
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