Association Responds To JAMA Report On Vitamin E, C Study And Cardiovascular Disease
In response to new findings to be published Tuesday, November 11, in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on whether long-term vitamin E or vitamin C supplementation decreases the risk of major cardiovascular events among men, the Natural Products Association issued the following statement from Daniel Fabricant, Ph.D.

General Optical Council Registration Fees Go Up For First Time In Four Years - UK
The GOC today announced that the annual retention fee for 2009/10 is rising from £169 to £219. This is the first time in four years that the cost of GOC registration has gone up. The new fee amount was agreed by Council at its November meeting, and applies to the next retention period, which runs from 1 April 2009 - 31 March 2010.

China Recalls Ginseng Injections After 3 Deaths
A chinese pharmaceutical firm recalled batches of ginseng herbal injections after three people given the treatments died, said a local authority announcement on Thursday in Kunming in southwestern Yunnan Province of China. According to China state news agency Xinhua, the Yunnan Provincial Health Department said the two recalled batches of "ciwujia" (a type of Siberian ginseng) injections have been tested and no toxins were found.

Study Looks At How Medicare Beneficiaries' Familiarity With The Program Affects Their Access To Care
"Does Poorer Familiarity With Medicare Translate Into Worse Access to Health Care?" Journal of the American Geriatrics Society: Robert Morgan, a professor of management, policy and community health at the University of Texas School of Public Health, and colleagues surveyed 2,997 white, black and Hispanic Medicare beneficiaries.

Higher Risk Of Certain Cancers Being Recorded In HIV-Positive People
Physicians in the U.S. are reporting a higher risk for certain types of cancers -- such as liver, head, neck and lung -- in people living with HIV/AIDS, raising concerns that a cancer epidemic is imminent in the population, the Baltimore Sun reports.

Family History Raises Breast Cancer Risk Despite Absence Of BRCA Mutations, Study Finds
Women with a strong family history of breast cancer have a four times greater risk for the disease than women in the general population, even if they do not carry a mutation of the BRCA gene, according to a study presented Monday at the American Association for Cancer Research's annual International Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research meeting in Washington, D.C., HealthDay/U.S.

Gentium Provides An Update On The Phase 3 Treatment Trial Of Defibrotide For Severe Veno-Occlusive Disease
Gentium S.p.A. (NASDAQ: GENT) announced today interim results from an independent Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) review of the Company's Phase 3 treatment trial of Defibrotide for Severe Veno-Occlusive Disease (VOD). The DSMB reported that in order for the study to be 80% powered to detect a p-value of .

Federal Appeals Court Upholds New Hampshire Law Prohibiting Sales Of Physicians' Prescribing Histories
The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston on Tuesday upheld a New Hampshire law prohibiting the sale of information about physicians' prescribing practices for use in prescription drug marketing, the AP/Lexington Herald-Leader reports (Love, AP/Lexington Herald-Leader, 11/18).

Non-White Med Students Reject Therapies Associated With Their Culture
Non-white medical students are more likely to embrace orthodox medicine and reject therapies traditionally associated with their cultures. That is one finding from an international study that measures the attitudes of medical students toward complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). While seemingly counter-intuitive, white students view CAM more favorably than their non-white counterparts, the study authors say.

Homeopathy: New Evidence
The two new studies reconstructed the Lancet review and the main conclusions of that reconstruction are: That the results of the Lancet review were very sensitive to the definition of 'large' trials. Because of heterogeneity between the trials included in the review, its results are less definite than claimed.

Innovative Drugs-of-Abuse Testing System Announced By Philips And Concateno
Concateno plc, Europe's largest provider of drug and alcohol testing programmes, and Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE:PHG, AEX:PHI) have today announced an innovative handheld drugs-of-abuse detection device.