Allergan PLC’s Warner Chilcott unit will pay $125 million and plead guilty to felony health-care fraud charges stemming from an investigation into its marketing that included improper payments to doctors, the Justice Department said Thursday. Warner Chilcott has agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges that the company paid kickbacks to physicians to entice them...
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New insights into the toxin behind tetanus
Tetanus toxin is the neurotoxin that causes lockjaw. Many are vaccinated, but tetanus still kills tens of thousands of people per year worldwide. Researchers from the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, led by Dr. Pål Stenmark, have now uncovered the poison’s structure. For the first time, the way the poison is constructed has been revealed....
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Mechanism shown to reverse disease in arteries
A certain immune reaction is the key, not to slowing atherosclerosis like cholesterol-lowering drugs do, but instead to reversing a disease that gradually blocks arteries to cause heart attacks and strokes. This is the finding of a study in mice led by researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center and published online June 26 in the Journal...
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Applying electric current to nerve for chronic low back pain does not provide clinically important improvement
In three randomized trials, treatment of chronic low back pain with radiofrequency denervation, a procedure that can be performed with different techniques including the application of an electric current to the pain-conducting nerve, resulted in either no improvement or no clinically important improvement in chronic low back pain, according to a study published by JAMA. Low...
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Multiple sclerosis: Antioxidant may slow disease progression
New research offers hope for patients with multiple sclerosis, after finding that a common over-the-counter antioxidant may help to slow the condition. In a pilot study, researchers found that taking a high dose of lipoic acid every day for 2 years reduced whole brain atrophy among patients with secondary progressive multiple sclerosis(SPMS), compared with a placebo. Lead...
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Some heartburn drugs linked with higher risk of death
Some heartburn drugs used by millions of Americans are associated with a higher risk of death, a new study suggests, but people on the drugs should talk with their doctor first before stopping the medicines, experts say. The drugs, called proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), reduce stomach acid and are available over-the-counter and by prescription. Other recent...
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Needle-Free Flu Vaccine Patch Works as Well as a Shot
A press-on patch that delivers flu vaccine painlessly worked as well as an old-fashioned flu shot with no serious side effects, researchers reported Tuesday. People who tried out the patch said it was not difficult or painful to use, and tests of their blood suggested the vaccine it delivers created about the same immune response...
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Studying immune response to aluminum salts can explain how these chemicals boost vaccine’s efficacy
Adjuvants are often included in vaccines to stimulate the immune system and so make a vaccine more effective. Now an A*STAR team, led by Alessandra Mortellaro from the Singapore Immunology Network, has explained a new immune pathway of a commonly used vaccine adjuvant, aluminum salts or ‘alum’ Components of disease-causing microorganisms contained in vaccines are...
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Drug discovery: Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s spurred by same enzyme
Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease are not the same. They affect different regions of the brain and have distinct genetic and environmental risk factors. But at the biochemical level, these two neurodegenerative diseases start to look similar. That’s how Emory scientists led by Keqiang Ye, PhD, landed on a potential drug target for Parkinson’s. In...
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Mitochondria-targeted antioxidant SkQ1 helps to treat diabetic wounds
Researchers at the Lomonosov Moscow State University used a mouse model of a mitochondria-targeted antioxidant to study treatment of diabetic wounds, and are publishing their results in the journal Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity. Wound healing is usually compromised in diabetes mellitus type II. Patients often suffer from skin damage on their feet—so-called diabetic foot ulcers. These wounds are...