Reuters Health News Summary

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

Roche taps Lilly executive Garraway as chief medical officer

Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding on Monday named Eli Lilly executive Levi Garraway to succeed Sandra Horning as chief medical officer and head of global product development. Garraway, most recently Eli Lilly's senior vice president, oncology research and development and Lilly research laboratories novel target research, will take up the post as of Oct. 1 and be based in South San Francisco.

Planned Parenthood turns down U.S. subsidies in fight over abortion referrals

Planned Parenthood said on Monday it would no longer accept grants from a federal program subsidizing reproductive healthcare for low-income women after the Trump administration banned participants in the program from referring women to abortion providers. The program known as Title X provides subsidies of reproductive healthcare and family planning costs for low-income women. The changes to program are part of an effort by U.S. Republicans and President Donald Trump's administration to crack down on abortion and occur as a handful of states are imposing sharp new limits on the procedure.

Who is next in big pharma's merger spree?

Consolidation in the U.S. healthcare industry, which has already witnessed a string of multi-billion dollar deals, is expected to remain a major theme for the rest of 2019. Bristol-Myers Squibb's $74 billion acquisition of Celgene set the M&A ball rolling in January, and was followed by AbbVie Inc's $63 billion bid for troubled smaller rival Allergan Plc.

U.S. records 21 new measles cases as of last week

The United States recorded 21 new measles cases last week, raising the total number of cases for the year to 1,203 across 30 states in the worst outbreak of the virus since 1992, federal health officials said on Monday. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said there had been a 1.8% increase in the number of cases of the highly contagious and sometimes deadly disease between Aug. 8 and Aug. 15.

Nabriva prices two pneumonia antibiotic versions at over $200 per day

Nabriva Therapeutics Plc on Monday priced an oral and injectable version of its antibiotic Xenleta, which treats community-acquired pneumonia, at more than $200 per day after it received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The drug, also called lefamulin, works by interfering with the bacteria's ability to replicate. It's the first drug by the company to be approved by the FDA and is expected to launch in mid-September.

Study prompts call for lower fluoride consumption by pregnant women

Adding fluoride to the water supply prevents tooth decay, but women who drink fluoridated water during pregnancy may also trim the IQs of their male children by a few points, according to a Canadian study that suggests a serious drawback to a long-established public health intervention. The study in JAMA Pediatrics looked at fluoride consumption by pregnant women and the effect on their babies by age 3 or 4. It did not examine whether drinking fluoridated water or getting the mineral from other sources after birth suppresses a child's intelligence.

UK's Johnson slams 'mumbo-jumbo' about vaccines after measles rates rise

Britons should get vaccinated against measles and ignore online "mumbo-jumbo" about dangers of the jabs, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday after a resurgence of the disease. Britain has lost its "measles-free" status three years after the virus was eliminated and there were more than 230 new cases of measles recorded in the first quarter of 2019.

Sleep quality may be linked with success during military basic training

Soldiers who experience sleep problems during basic combat training may be more likely to struggle with psychological distress, attention difficulties, and anger issues during their entry into the military, a recent study suggests. "These results show that it would probably be useful to check in with new soldiers over time because sleep problems can be a signal that a soldier is encountering difficulties," said Amanda Adrian, lead author of the study and a research psychologist at the Center for Military Psychiatry and Neuroscience at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Ebola spreads to remote, militia-run Congo territory

Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo have confirmed a new case of Ebola in the remote, militia-controlled territory of Walikale, hundreds of kilometers away from where previous cases near the border with Uganda and Rwanda occurred, the Health Ministry said overnight. Pinga, the village where the case was reported, lies about 150 km (95 miles) northwest of Goma, one of the towns affected by the Ebola epidemic, and much further away from the epicenter of the epidemic in Butembo and Beni.

Tobacco industry anti-smoking ads reached less than half of U.S. adults

(Reuters Health) - Court-ordered anti-smoking ads sponsored by the tobacco industry reached only around 40% of adults and about half of all smokers in the U.S., a recent study suggests. Past research has shown that anti-smoking mass media campaigns are an effective public health intervention and work to reverse misconceptions, researchers write in JAMA Network Open.