The FDA has just approved the first generic version of Lovenox, a popular blood thinner. The drug’s entry into the market could mean hundreds of dollars in savings for someone who depends on the drug for stroke/heart disease treatment.

Lovenox is used to treat and prevent deep vein thrombosis, a condition that, if left unchecked, can cause stroke or pulmonary embolism (blood clots in the lung).

Momenta, the company whose technology was used to produce the new generic (M-Enoxaparin), has been awaiting approval for five years. They’ve spent the last half-decade battling Sanofi-Aventis, makers of Lovenox, over the drug’s efficacy.

According to Sanofi-Aventis, the biologically derived drug is complex and difficult to reproduce, and that it could fail with even the slightest error. They argue that the new generic may not be safe for consumers. The U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. is considering the company’s case, but for now Sandoz/Momenta’s M-Enoxaparin is legal and available for use.

“The approval of M-Enoxaparin marks a key milestone for Momenta, and we are extremely pleased,” said Momenta president and CEO Craig Wheeler in a press release. “This is the first product based on Momenta’s technology platform to be approved, and demonstrates our ability to characterize and develop a complex mixture drug like Lovenox.”

Read the original article in the New York Times, or read Momenta’s press release for more details.

Ladies, stand up for yourselves in the doctor's office. Millions of people are misdiagnosed each year, and many of these cases are women. Women who are less likely to speak up may put themselves at risk in an already overwhelmed clinic.

If there’s a bug going around the office and you wake up with some of the same symptoms, you’ll likely assume you’ve got it, too. Most doctors think the same way. If he or she sees three people with colds in one day, it would be an easy guess that the next person with a stuffy nose and fever has the same thing.

The problem is that a lot of conditions share symptoms, and it can be misleading if not all the symptoms show up. This makes it easy to make a misdiagnosis—as many as one in five diagnoses are incorrect or go undiagnosed.

For women, the most commonly misdiagnosed conditions include ovarian cancer, autoimmune disease and hormonal imbalances. Heart disease, for example, is more common in men. When women experience the same symptoms, especially young women, a doctor may consider stress to be the cause instead.

The best way to avoid a misdiagnosis is to share all of your symptoms. Seeing the same doctor doesn’t hurt, either. When you and your doctor know your history and get the full story, it’s harder to miss the little details that make a big difference. Finally, don’t be afraid to do some research before your appointment and don’t be afraid to ask questions.

If you don’t stand up for your health, no one will. Get the full scoop from MSNBC.

Proper medication disposal can keep you and those around you safe. That's why it's important to keep track of expired medicines and to dispose of them properly.

Proper drug disposal can help protect against reactions from expired medications, accidental ingestion (i.e., by children), and potential prescription drug abuse by others. It can also protect the environment by ensuring cleaner water sources. We've compiled a list of tips to help you practice drug safety:

• Color-code drug packages/bottles with different-colored stickers according to expiration date (i.e., by season or month). Writing a larger, more visible expiration date on the package with a permanent marker may also help.
• Don’t flush expired drugs down the toilet. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has specific guidelines on what can and cannot be flushed. Flushing drugs can cause pollution to human water supplies and danger to natural aquatic habitats.
• The Office of National Drug Control Policy suggests crushing pills, if possible, and mixing them with sand, coffee grounds, gravel, etc., before returning them to the bottle and throwing away. This ensures that no one will try to use the substance. Always make sure labels with personal information have been removed. Then, simply throw the container in the trash.
• Some communities have drug take-back programs. These programs are organized specifically to safely dispose of prescription drugs and other potentially dangerous household wastes. Talk with your pharmacist about other options to properly dispose of over-the-counter and prescription medications if your community does not offer a drug return program.           

For more on proper medication disposal, visit the FDA’s site for the Department of Health&Human Services.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is pushing meat producers to cut the amount of antibiotics given to animals. The concern is that these antibiotics could lead to resistant strains of bacteria that could infect consumers.

Antibiotics have long been used in livestock care. In addition to treating sick animals, antibiotics are used to prevent the spread of disease and further promote healthier, and generally larger, produce. This practice is used to produce more food, which is why some are reluctant to restrict the amount of antibiotics that can be used to raise animals.

“As we know, healthy animals produce safe food,” Sam Carney, president of the National Pork Producers Council, told MSNBC. “We need every available tool to protect animal health.”

Current guidelines allow meat producers to use antibiotics therapeutically (for illness) or sub-therapeutically (for prevention). Certain groups, such as Keep Antibiotics Working, maintain that the overuse of antibiotics leads to hardier, more resistant bacteria—such as salmonella and C. and E. coli—that can be transmitted to humans.

The FDA acknowledges that minimizing antibiotic resistance is “critically important for protecting both public and animal health.” In response, it is encouraging producers to limit the amount of sub-therapeutic antibiotics administered to livestock and poultry.

Read more from MSNBC, or learn more about antibiotic use in animals.

Do foods sold  with cartoon characters on the package taste better? In a Yale study, children preferred cartoon-endorsed foods to identical products in different packages.

Forty New Haven, Conn.,  four- to six-year olds participated in the study. They tried two samples of three different snack foods—graham crackers, fruit snacks, and carrots. Unbeknownst to the children, products within each group were identical foods in different packaging.

When asked which of each sample tasted better,  more than half of the children chose the snacks in cartoon-endorsed packaging. This number jumped to about 85 percent when asked which snacks they preferred.

Christina Roberto, a post-graduate student at Yale University and lead author of the study, says this is no accident. Companies use cartoons to push kids to choose their products.

Seems innocent enough, right? Wrong. One of the major concerns is when companies use characters to promote junk food rather than health food, which can lead to weight problems and poorer nutrition.

"The food industry spends $1.6 billion on youth-targeted marketing and, of that, 13 percent is dedicated to character licensing and cross-promoting," Roberto told ABC News. "For the most part, these foods are of poor nutritional quality."

Roberto suggests restricting what foods can use cartoon endorsements, but other experts, like registered dietitian Keith Thomas Ayoob of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, say parents need to take more responsibility.

"It has been shown to be successful that kids would eat a bag of carrots if their favorite character is on it. It's a tool. I have a hard time thinking these characters should be restricted,"he told ABC News. “I think parents have a whole lot more influence."

Uh-oh SpaghettiO! Campbell's  has recalled several SpaghettiO products due to the possibility of undercooked meat.

Roughly 15 million pounds of SpaghettiOs were recalled after a cooker malfunction was discovered in a Paris, Texas plant. The recall is voluntary, but spokesman Anthony Sanzio says it’s better safe than sorry.

Consuming undercooked meat can cause food poisoning. Symptoms include nausea/vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain or cramping, fatigue, and/or fever. Symptoms may appear within a few hours or several days later, and can last as long as ten days.

Contact your doctor immediately if you experience severe symptoms and believe you may have food poisoning. You should also check your SpaghettiOs labels to make sure they are not affected by the recall.

Here’s What to Look For:

·       SpaghettiOs products containing meat—SpaghettiOs with Meatballs, SpaghettiOs A to Z with Meatballs and SpaghettiOs Fun Shapes with Meatballs.

·       SpaghettiOs products containing meat produced between December 2008 and June 2010.

·       SpaghettiOs products on which “EST 4K” appears on the label.

·       SpaghettiOs products with a “Use By” date betweene June 2010 and December 2011.

Campbell’s urges customers to return these products to the store for a full refund or exchange.

Get more information about the recall by calling Campbell’s Customer service line (1-866-495-3374) or visiting the Campbell’s Soup website.

A new liver transplant method adds a new facet to the term "going green". The method of re-seeding liver cells, essentially a form of bio-re-hauling, may become a promising option for patients in need of liver transplants.

Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital’s Center for Engineering cleared live cells from liver tissue to leave a framework. They “re-seeded” healthy liver tissue into the framework, where tissues eventually regenerated.

The goal is for the tissue to attach to host tissues, where it would take root and redevelop unhealthy tissue. Although experimentation is in its early stages, the method was successful in laboratory rats.

“As far as we know, a transplantable liver graft has never been constructed in a laboratory setting before,” lead researcher Dr. Korkut Uygun told BBC News.

If it proved effective in humans, it could be a realistic answer to the donor organ shortage. Roughly 15,000 people are in need of a new liver each year, while the actual number available is a mere 4,500. This method could help make previously rejected organs acceptable for transplant.

“We haven’t been able to go beyond several hours in the rats,” Uygun says, “but it’s a great start.”

Want to know more? See Uygun’s article in Nature Medicine.

 

Melinda Gates, wife of Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and co-chair of the Gates Foundation, has generously pledged $1.5 billion to help stop maternal death, or death after childbirth. Although rates are decreasing, Gates says it's time for the world to come together to save women's and children's lives.

“It’s not that the world doesn’t know how to save the 350,000 mothers and 3 million newborns that die every year,” she told The Seattle Times. “It is that we haven’t tried hard enough.”

These numbers have dropped by about 30 percent since 1980, but according to this year’s Countdown to 2015 report by the World Health Organization nearly 2 million deaths occur each year as a result of childbirth and labor complications alone. For many countries, maternal and infant mortality rates remain unchanged.

Hemorrhage and hypertension top the list of causes for maternal death, followed shortly by HIV/AIDS, malaria, and heart disease. Infection after childbirth also presents a threat to mothers, while pneumonia, malaria and diarrhea pose the greatest threats to newborns.

Women Deliver, the advocacy group that received the donation, has set goals to help increase maternal survival. Methods include greater access to family planning tools, prenatal care and access to better healthcare. They also hope to change attitudes about maternal death.

"In many countries the belief that death is inevitable, and therefore acceptable, hasn't yet changed," Gates told MSNBC. "We don't have to tolerate fatalism.”

Read more from MSNBC and The Seattle Times, or learn how you can help by visiting Women Deliver online.

You've heard of toning your abs and working your glutes, but what about your throat? As it turns out, throat exercises could relieve symptoms of sleep apnea.

Sleep apnea—apnea literally means “without breath” in Greek—affects more than 12 million Americans and causes on-again, off-again breathing throughout the night. People with sleep apnea may also experience loud snoring and/or feel tired despite getting a full night’s sleep.

There are two main types of sleep apnea—central sleep apnea, which occurs when the brain doesn’t send signals to the brain to breathe; and the more common obstructive sleep apnea, which occurs when throat muscles relax.

A person with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) usually experiences disrupted breathing and poor sleep quality. For this study, 15 people with moderate OSAS did breathing exercises every day for 3 months. Another 16 did what were known as oropharyngeal (throat) exercises using a breathing machine.

Not unlike a stair master that works your thighs, the breathing machine works your throat using what’s known as continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP). The machine continuously pumps air through a mask to force air passages open during inhalation. Each session lasts for roughly 30 minutes.

Participants who did the breathing exercises did not show any significant improvements at the end of the experiment, but those who used CPAP had a lower neck circumference, snored less frequently and intensely, and experienced better sleep quality. The overall severity of their condition was reduced by a whopping 39 percent.

“Oropharyngeal exercises significantly reduce OSAS severity and symptoms,” authors of the study concluded. “(These exercises) represent a promising treatment for OSAS.”

Learn more about sleep apnea from the American Sleep Apnea Association, or read the source article from the New York Times.

You may want to skip the salad bar this week. The FDA announced a recall on lettuce from Freshway Foods due to an outbreak of E. coli in 23 states.

The recall was issued about a week ago when Freshway reported that products with romaine lettuce may be contaminated with E. coli, a type of bacteria that dwell in the intestines.

Some strands destroyed by stomach acid are safe, but other varieties of E. coli found in contaminated food and water can cause infections that lead to severe diarrhea, cramping, bloody stools, and in severe cases organ damage and/or kidney failure.

According to the Mayo Clinic, symptoms of E. coli usually pass within a week for healthy adults, but can last much longer for children and people with weak immune systems. Drinking lots of water can help offset dehydration, but if symptoms persist doctors recommend seeking immediate medical attention.

"We are voluntarily issuing this recall because we want to do everything possible to minimize risk to public health," Freshway Foods president Phil Gilardi said in an FDA press release.

"(We are) committed to our consumers,” he says. “We practice strict food safety guidelines to ensure that our products are as safe as possible, and we will continue to look for opportunities for improvement."

The recall included products sold primarily to restaurants, salad bars, delis, etc. Bulk products and “prepackaged romaine or bagged salad mixes containing romaine for sale in supermarkets”, however, are safe.

Hey, it’s an excuse to grab a slice of pizza, right?

Get more details from the FDA’s press release, or read more at MSNBC.