Health

The former top lawyer for Turing Pharmaceuticals says he and other executives warned Martin Shkreli against the drastic price hike that triggered a national backlash against the company and its 32-year-old CEO. Turing’s former general counsel will tell Senate lawmakers that the fiftyfold price increase on Daraprim, a drug used to treat life-threatening parasitic infections, [...]

Which operation has the United Nations bungled most badly? The ponderous response to the Ebola epidemic — or the ongoing deployment of 4,500 troops in Haiti? Or was it the dispatch of peacekeepers to the Central African Republic who have ended up accused of raping and abusing the people they’re supposed to be looking out [...]

German doctors are puzzled by the first outbreak of Lassa fever outside Africa. They say three people have been infected after having contact with an American who died of Lassa fever there last month. “This is now the first documented outbreak of Lassa fever virus outside of Africa,” the Robert Koch Institute, Germany’s federal disease [...]

Labour peer Joan Bakewell says she is “deeply sorry” for causing “distress” by suggesting the rise of eating disorders among teenagers was a sign of “narcissism” in society. She told The Sunday Times “no one has anorexia in societies where there is not enough food”, and it was a sign of “the overindulgence of our [...]

Volunteers who used this approach were 25% more likely to remain abstinent half a year from the date that they give up than smokers who tried to gradually wean themselves off instead. The NHS says that picking a convenient date to quit is important. Make a promise, set a date and stick to it, it [...]

  Eye lens regeneration from own stem cells: ‘a paradigm shift in cataract surgery’ A new study describes a pioneering new cataract treatment – tested in animals and in a small trial with human patients – where, after the cloudy lens is removed, the eye grows a new lens from its own stem cells. Current [...]