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class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Pfizer Inc said its experimental psoriasis drug was effective in treating the condition in a late-stage trial. _0"> Two doses of the drug, tofacitinib, maintained the treatment effect in patients suffering from moderate-to-severe chronic plaque psoriasis, the company said. The trial data showed that patients who stayed on the drug maintained the treatment effect and, among those who stopped therapy, some patients were able to regain the original treatment effect when given tofacitinib, Pfizer said. (Reporting by Esha Dey in Bangalore; Editing by Savio D'Souza )

After finding that student-athletes felt no more distress about heart screening with electrocardiograms, or ECGs, than they did with physical exams, a new study concludes that anxiety should not be considered a reason to avoid giving the test. An ECG measures the electrical activity of the heart and can detect disturbances that could predispose people to rare but dangerous cardiac arrests. Sudden cardiac death is the most common cause of death during exercise, researchers note. class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Italy and class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Israel mandate ECG screening as part of sports pre-participation examinations, while the debate over whether to require athletes to get the test has become increasingly contentious in the United States. One of the downsides of ECGs is that they sometimes suggest a heart problem that turns out to be a false alarm upon further testing. In the interim, athletes may fear for their health or their future in sports.

Children with asthma are no more likely than their peers to suffer mental health problems – provided their asthma is well-controlled, according to Dutch researchers. “The original literature, mostly from America, suggested that kids with asthma were at risk for anxiety, depression and low self-esteem, but that’s not what we’ve encountered in our clinical practice,” said the lead author of a new study, Professor Paul Brand, who works with asthmatic children at Princess Amalia Childrens Center at Isala Hospital in Zwolle, The Netherlands. Earlier research probably included many children who did not take their daily medications as prescribed, he said. When kids take the necessary medicines, they don’t appear to be any worse off psychologically than other children.   true       He and his team compared 70 children from their clinic with mostly well-controlled asthma and aged 8 to 15 years old, to 70 of their friends, who were similar in many ways but did not have asthma. All the

People who have had a stroke can often benefit from moderate exercise, doctors and physical therapists report. In a scientific statement from the American Heart Association and the American Stroke Association, they write that both aerobic exercise and strength training may help stroke survivors keep up their daily activities and improve their quality of life. Becoming more active may also lower their risk of having a heart attack or a second stroke, but that remains to be shown definitively. “Physical activity really has to be at the base of any sort of recommendation post-stroke,” said James Rimmer, from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the Lakeshore Foundation. Rimmer was not involved in writing the scientific statement, but has studied the effects of exercise after stroke. About 795,000 people in the U.S. have a stroke every year, the authors of the report note. Most of them survive, but with some stroke-related impairment. Many people who have had a stroke al

People who are overweight when they are diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis are less likely to be able to control the disease well in its early stages than people of a healthy weight, according to a new study. In rheumatoid arthritis, the body’s immune system attacks its own connective tissue, destroying the cartilage that protects joints. The condition leads to stiffness, joint swelling and whole-body fatigue. Unlike the more common osteoarthritis, or “wear-and-tear” arthritis, which affects people as they get older, rheumatoid arthritis can happen at any age. It affects less than one percent of adults, or 1.3 million people in the U.S., according to the American College of Rheumatology.   true       Most patients will experience improvement when they start treatment, but only a minority will go into remission, said Dr. Paul-Peter Tak of the Academic Medical Center at the University of Amsterdam, who was not part of the new research. The study included almost 500 adults in t

A painful mosquito-borne virus spreading quickly through the Caribbean is causing alarm in Haiti and neighboring Dominican Republic, where health officials are scrambling to respond to a surge of new patients. Chikungunya, a virus more commonly found in Africa and Asia and transmitted by the same daytime-biting aedes aegypti mosquito that causes the more deadly dengue fever, was first detected in the eastern Caribbean five months ago. Since then, it has jumped from island to island, sending thousands of patients to the hospital with painful joints, pounding headaches and spiking fevers.   true       "These mosquitoes know no borders," said Phyllis Kozarsky, a physician with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Seven deaths have been associated with the virus, but those people likely suffered from other health problems, health officials say. Chikungunya is normally not deadly and symptoms begin to dissipate within a week. The Pan-American Heal

U.S. health regulators on Friday approved Qiagen NV's gene-testing kit to identify those colorectal cancer patients most likely to benefit from Amgen Inc's drug, Vectibix, Qiagen said. _0"> In addition, the Food and Drug Administration expanded the approval of Vectibix to allow its use as a first-line, or initial, treatment for colon cancer in combination with the widely used FOLFOX chemotherapy regimen, Amgen said. The expanded Vectibix approval is for patients who have a non-mutated, or wild type, KRAS gene after clinical trials demonstrated that those patients were most likely to be helped by the drug.   true       The FDA approval for the genetic test marks the third U.S. approval for a Qiagen companion diagnostic for use in combination with a specific drug, a key growth market for the German company. Both approvals could pave the way for increased use of Vectibix, which has been largely a disappointment for Amgen. It means the drug can be used earlier in t

A crackdown on corruption and pricing in China's fast-growing pharmaceutical market has squeezed profits and margins, raising a red flag to global Big Pharma that the days of easy growth in the country may be over. A Reuters' analysis of more than 60 listed Chinese healthcare firms shows average profit margins declined to around 10 percent last year from 15 percent in 2012. Average net profits fell 2.1 percent, down from close to 20 percent growth in previous years. class="mandelbrot_refrag"> China has been a magnet for the big global pharmaceutical companies and other healthcare firms as growth slows in Europe and the United States. It is the largest emerging drugs market and is set to be the global number two overall within three years, according to consultancy IMS Health.   true       While global drugmakers withhold their class="mandelbrot_refrag"> China profit figures, the analysis suggests profit growth is harder to come by - a concern a

A nuclear waste repository in New class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Mexico was ordered by the state on Tuesday to craft a plan to hasten the sealing off of underground vaults where drums of toxic, plutonium-tainted refuse from Los Alamos National Laboratory may have caused a radiation release. The directive by state Environment Secretary Ryan Flynn said the drums, buried half a mile below ground at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near the town of Carlsbad, "may present an imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment". The repository, the only facility of its kind in the United States, has been shut since Feb. 14, when unsafe radiation levels were detected there. The leak of radiation, a small amount of which escaped to the surface and exposed 22 workers at the plant, ranks as the facility's worst accident and one of the few blemishes on its safety record since it opened in 1999. Flynn ordered managers of the U.S. Energy Department facil

The operator of Japan's destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant began releasing groundwater that it said is within legal radiation safety limits into the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday, in a bid to manage huge amounts of radioactive water built up at the site. _0"> Tokyo Electric Power, or Tepco, has been fighting a daily battle against contaminated water since the Fukushima nuclear station was wrecked by a massive earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. The controversial release, which was agreed by local fishermen after extended talks, coincides with a breakdown of a water treatment system for the highly contaminated water held in makeshift tanks.   true       It also comes amid revelations this week in the Asahi Shimbun newspaper that the majority of workers at the plant fled during the height of the meltdowns after the quake and tsunami knocked out cooling and backup power. Groundwater flows down from nearby hills and 400 metric tonnes (440 tons) enters basements of the wrec

Singapore is approaching its yearly "haze" season, when smoke from forest clearing in class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Indonesia chokes the air, with this year likely to be worse than 2013's record pollution thanks to lack of action in Jakarta and an expected El Nino weather pattern. The prosperous city-state, which prides itself on its clean air, was shrouded in heavy smog from slash-and-burn clearances on the neighboring Indonesian island of Sumatra last June which sent its air pollution index to a record high. One year on, and an election-distracted government in class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Indonesia has still not ratified the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) 2002 Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution, and fires continue to burn in Sumatra. That is despite outrage in Singapore as well as environmental groups putting pressure on Jakarta. Fires are used to clear land on plantations and can burn for weeks because of peat depos

Brazil’s government, the World Wildlife Fund and various partners are expected to unveil an agreement on Wednesday that would establish a $215 million fund for conservation of protected jungle in the Amazon rainforest. The fund, which seeks to ensure conservation of over 90 protected areas in the Amazon, comes as renewed developmental pressures mount in the region, resulting last year in an uptick in deforestation figures after years of record lows. Under the terms of the agreement, partners in the fund will make annual contributions to help class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Brazil meet financing needs for the protected lands, whose combined area totals more than 60 million hectares, or an area 20 percent larger than class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Spain . Contributions, partners said, will be contingent upon conditions required of class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Brazil , including audits of the government body that will administer the fund and continued

EU policymakers took the first steps towards regulating emissions from lorries through greater fuel efficiency on Wednesday, but stopped short of the targets that have forced car manufacturers to make their vehicles pollute less. As part of wider efforts to cut the need for imported energy, especially from class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Russia , the European Commission is seeking to improve energy efficiency across all sectors. It has introduced carbon dioxide limits, based on improved fuel efficiency for cars and vans, but emissions from what the Commission refers to as heavy-duty vehicles are unregulated.   true       The Commission, the EU executive, put forward a strategy to start monitoring the amount of carbon dioxide new trucks emit and said it would propose legislation next year. European Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said that in time, the measures would "cut the CO2 emissions of these vehicles, save operators money and make the EU less dependent o

A Japanese court on Wednesday ruled against restarting a class="mandelbrot_refrag"> nuclear power plant in a rare victory for anti-nuclear activists after the Fukushima disaster, and dealing a blow to government efforts to end a nationwide nuclear freeze. The ruling against the restart of a western power station run by Kansai Electric Power Co was a scathing critique of the Japanese nuclear industry's risk management, but does not block a restart under Japanese law as it is not a final ruling. The utility, the country's second-largest, which supplies electricity to a key manufacturing region, said it would appeal the ruling against restarting reactors 3 and 4 at the Ohi nuclear plant in Fukui prefecture, 500 km (310 miles) west of Tokyo. All 48 of Japan's nuclear reactors have been idled for safety checks after an earthquake and tsunami triggered triple meltdowns at Tokyo Electric Power Co's Fukushima Daiichi plant, forcing more than 150,000 reside

The U.N. funding vehicle for helping developing nations tackle climate change has set a November goal to receive its first round of cash pledges, a move hailed as a major step towards a global pact in 2015. _0"> The 24-strong board of the Green Climate Fund, set up to help channel at least $100 billion a year by 2020 from governments and the private sector, set a loose deadline after agreeing several procedural steps during four days of talks in Songdo, class="mandelbrot_refrag"> South Korea . Getting money flowing towards schemes such as building solar power plants or deploying flood management systems is seen as crucial to getting over 130 developing nations to sign a U.N. climate pact in late 2015.   true       But rich nations such as those in the European Union, class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Japan and the United States had been reluctant to donate without clear rules to ensure the cash would be spent wisely. Environmental campaigners and inv

The Obama administration is likely to partly backtrack on proposed steep cuts to renewable fuel targets for 2014 when it finalizes a rule due out in June, industry sources said. Biofuel groups expect the Environmental Protection Agency to send the final proposed targets to the White House as soon as Friday. The EPA shocked biofuel supporters in November with a draft rule that slashed federal requirements for biofuel use in gasoline and diesel. The agency argued that U.S. energy class="mandelbrot_refrag"> markets could not absorb the levels of class="mandelbrot_refrag"> renewable fuels that would be required by a 2007 law.   true       Since then, though, rising projections for gasoline consumption give the agency leeway to raise its corn ethanol target from November's proposal of about 13 billion gallons to about 13.6 billion, a biofuel industry source said. The more gasoline consumed, the more ethanol that can be absorbed before hitting the &quo

class="mandelbrot_refrag"> India will impose anti-dumping duties on solar panels imported from the United States, class="mandelbrot_refrag"> China , Taiwan and Malaysia to protect domestic solar manufacturers, according to a government statement seen by Reuters on Friday. The order, almost certain to anger India's trading partners, sets duties of between 11 and 81 U.S. cents per watt and comes after a investigation which started in 2011. The ruling by a quasi-judicial body has to be published by the class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Finance Ministry before it takes effect. The decision adds to India's growing trade disputes just before Narendra Modi takes office as prime minister on Monday.   true       "Imposition of anti-dumping measures would remove the unfair advantages gained by dumping practices," said India's Anti-Dumping Authority in its order released on Thursday. Local manufacturers have long complained that U.

A Chinese woman climbed Mount Everest on Friday, a government official said, the first person to go up from the Nepali side since an April avalanche killed 16 guides and forced hundreds of foreigners to abandon attempts on the world’s highest mountain. The deadliest accident in the history of Mount Everest triggered a dispute between Sherpa guides who wanted a climbing ban in honor of their colleagues for this season ending this month and the government that refused to close the mountain. Tourism Ministry official Dipendra Poudel said 40-year-old Wang Jing reached the 8,850 meters (29,035 feet) summit on Friday afternoon in good weather. She climbed with five Sherpa guides along the Southeast Ridge route pioneered by Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953.   true       Tourism including mountain climbing contributes four percent to Nepal’s GDP. More than 4,000 people have climbed Mount Everest since it was first scaled in 1953 while more than 250 have died on the sl

Crews fighting a major wind-swept wildfire that has threatened hundreds of Arizona homes in a scenic area could look to the skies with optimism on Friday, buoyed by forecasts of improved weather conditions, a top fire official said.     About 900 firefighters took to the fire lines amid higher moisture and favorable winds as they continued efforts to hold off a 7,500-acre blaze that threatens 300 homes and businesses in Oak Creek Canyon, a popular class="mandelbrot_refrag"> recreation spot about 120 miles (190 km) north of Phoenix. The so-called Slide Fire, which has not destroyed any homes or caused any major injuries, remained at 5 percent containment on Friday, officials said.   true       "It looks like the weather is going to cooperate for the next couple of days," Incident Commander Tony Sciacca told a news conference. "One of the promising things ... is that our relative humidity is on the rise and will continue to be.” But he also cautioned t

A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of northern class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Greece on Saturday, some 77 km (48 miles) south-southwest of Alexandroupolis, the U.S. Geological Survey said. _0"> The USGS said the quake's depth was 10 km (six miles). There were no immediate reports of casualties or serious damage. Residents in Istanbul in neighboring class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Turkey felt a small tremor that lasted around 10 seconds. No further details were immediately available.   true       (Reporting by Karolina Tagaris, Editing by Alison Williams/Mark Heinrich)

Hurricane Amanda, the first named big storm of the Pacific hurricane season, formed off the west coast of Mexico on Saturday morning and churned north, where it was projected to gain strength but stay far out at sea. _0"> Amanda was located 645 miles (1,035 km) southwest of the Mexican port of Manzanillo with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph (120 km/h) and the storm was moving west-northwest at 5 miles per hour (7 km/h), the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. The Miami-based center said the storm could become a major hurricane by Sunday, but that there were no coastal watches in effect. class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Mexico has no significant oil installations on its Pacific coast.   true       (Reporting by Michael O'Boyle; editing by Gunna Dickson)

Hurricane Amanda rapidly gained strength far off the west coast of Mexico on Saturday evening and churned farther out to sea. _0"> Amanda reached category 3 strength after becoming the first named hurricane of the Pacific season earlier on Saturday. It was located 665 miles (1,075 km) southwest of the Mexican port of Manzanillo, with maximum sustained winds of 115 mph (185 km/h), the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. The Miami-based center said the storm could still gain more power as it turns to the north-northwest on Sunday and then begins to weaken Monday. There were no coastal watches in effect and class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Mexico has no significant oil installations on its Pacific coast.   true       (Reporting by Michael O'Boyle; Editing by Gunna Dickson & Kim Coghill)

Grammy-winning rockers the Black Keys debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 weekly album chart on Wednesday, coming in ahead of an album of original songs from late singer Michael Jackson and country music star Dolly Parton's latest album. _0"> "Turn Blue," the eighth studio album from the Ohio duo, sold 164,000 copies in its first week, according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan. "Xscape," a posthumous collection of eight unreleased tracks from Jackson, sold 157,000 copies, boosted by a high-profile performance featuring a singing and dancing Jackson as a hologram at Sunday's televised Billboard Awards.   true       Other new debuts in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 include country music group Rascal Flatts at No. 5 with "Rewind," Dolly Parton's "Blue Smoke" at No. 6 and singer-songwriter Tori Amos at No. 7 with "Unrepentant Geraldines." Christian music singer Michael W. Smith rounded out the top 10 with &q