Genetic testing company 23andMe is reintroducing some health screening tools that federal regulators forced off the market more than two years ago, due to concerns about their accuracy and interpretation by customers. The Google-backed company said Wednesday it will again offer 35 tests that tell users whether they carry genetic mutations for rare diseases like cystic fibrosis, which can be passed from parents to children. The relaunch comes as the Silicon Valley company works to mend its relationship with the Food and Drug Administration and medical experts who have criticized the company's direct-to-consumer approach.
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) was highly prevalent in morbidly obese patients who underwent weight loss surgery even when those patients didn't have metabolic syndrome, according to researchers here.
The American Cancer Society now says women should start mammograms later in life and get fewer of them, a stance that puts the trusted group closer to an influential government task force's advice. In new guidelines out Tuesday, the cancer society recommends that most women should begin annual screening for breast cancer at age 45 instead of 40, and switch to every other year at 55. The task force advises screening every other year starting at age 50. It's not a one-size-fits-all recommendation; both groups say women's preferences for when to be scanned should be considered.
Appointment wait times at the Department of Veterans Affairs are not getting better. Despite billions of extra dollars poured into the agency in the last year and numerous reforms intended to improve veterans' access to care, whistleblowers and internal documents obtained by CNN reveal some VA facilities continue to grapple with appointment wait times of months or more. Even at the Phoenix VA medical center, where CNN learned last year "secret" appointment lists were hiding how veterans were dying waiting for care, sources say complicated wait-time calculations obscure ongoing appointment delays.
This might seem to be a rough political patch for the pharmaceutical and medical device industries. The exponential price increases of several drugs have brought scrutiny to the overall rise in drug costs and have prompted several 2016 candidates, most notably Hillary Clinton, to vow action to rein in the industry. Meanwhile, thousands of complaints are pouring into the Food and Drug Administration about a contraceptive implant made by Bayer. In Congress, however, things are looking better for the manufacturers. Legislation is advancing that would speed up the FDA's approval process for medications and medical devices, offering a rare example of how major initiatives can get traction even in today's gridlocked Washington.
Ordinary staph infections are just as likely to kill newborn babies as infections caused by a superbug, researchers reported Monday. It's a reminder that garden-variety infections are dangerous, too, Dr. Brian Smith of the Duke University school of medicine and colleagues reported. They surveyed 48 neonatal intensive care units around the United States from 1997 through 2012 and found most staph infections — 72 percent of them — caused by ordinary Staphylococcus aureus germs. Just 28 percent were caused by the headline-generating methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA. In fact, more babies die from drug-susceptible staph than from MRSA.