Reuters Health News Summary

The government's restrictions, which include tracking who comes and goes from farms, are rekindling unwanted memories of COVID-19 in Martin and other small towns in central Michigan. US Senator Sanders optimistic Novo Nordisk can be pressured to cut Wegovy, Ozempic prices Senator Bernie Sanders on Wednesday expressed confidence that Novo Nordisk can be convinced to cut the U.S. prices of its popular Ozempic and Wegovy drugs used for weight loss by publicly shaming the company over how much it charges compared with prices in other countries.

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

China approves CSPC Pharma's RSV vaccine for clinical trials

China's National Medical Products Administration has given regulatory clearance for CSPC Pharmaceutical Group's respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine candidate to begin human clinical trials, the drugmaker said. RSV, which shows symptoms similar to a cold but can be fatal for young children and older adults, contributed to 17.6% of one group of patients in Beijing dying within 60 days compared to 7.5% for a group with influenza A virus infection.

Bird flu response in Michigan sparks COVID-era worry on farms

Some dairy farmers are resisting Michigan's nation-leading efforts to stop the spread of bird flu for fear their incomes will suffer from added costs and hurt rural America. The government's restrictions, which include tracking who comes and goes from farms, are rekindling unwanted memories of COVID-19 in Martin and other small towns in central Michigan.

US Senator Sanders optimistic Novo Nordisk can be pressured to cut Wegovy, Ozempic prices

Senator Bernie Sanders on Wednesday expressed confidence that Novo Nordisk can be convinced to cut the U.S. prices of its popular Ozempic and Wegovy drugs used for weight loss by publicly shaming the company over how much it charges compared with prices in other countries. Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Jorgensen is set to testify before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), which Sanders chairs, in a September hearing focusing on U.S. prices for Ozempic and Wegovy.

Polish parliament rejects bill seeking to ease strict abortion law

Poland's lower house rejected a bill on Friday that sought to scrap penalties for people who help someone to get an abortion, highlighting deep divisions in the ruling coalition over easing one of Europe's most restrictive abortion laws. Under the draft law, people helping to arrange an abortion, for example by providing abortion pills, and doctors performing terminations in the early weeks of pregnancy or due to foetal anomalies would no longer have faced charges.

Novo Nordisk faces scrutiny on Capitol Hill for pulling Levemir insulin from US market

Democratic U.S. Senate aides will meet with Novo Nordisk executives on Tuesday to discuss fallout from its decision to stop selling one of its long-acting insulins in the country, two sources familiar with the meeting told Reuters. Novo Nordisk will meet with the aides for Senators Jeanne Shaheen, Raphael Warnock, and Elizabeth Warren. In April, the lawmakers wrote to the company expressing alarm at its decision, announced in November, that it would permanently discontinue Levemir by the end of 2024.

Ozempic linked with lower dementia risk, nicotine use, British study finds

Novo Nordisk's popular diabetes treatment Ozempic could be tied to a lower risk of cognitive problems, according to an observational study published by researchers at Oxford University. The study, published in the Lancet's eClinicalMedicine journal on Thursday, explored more than 100 million medical records of U.S. patients to see if Ozempic increased the risk of several neurological and psychiatric conditions in the first year of use compared with three common antidiabetic drugs.

Pfizer moves forward with once-daily weight-loss pill

Pfizer plans to move a reworked, once-a-day version of its weight-loss pill danuglipron into clinical trials later this year, the company said on Thursday, after scrapping a twice- daily version of the drug late last year. The new drug is part of the second generation of weight-loss pills under development by companies including Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk that will offer patients a more convenient alternative to injections.

Patients on weight-loss drugs should inform doctor before surgery, EU regulator says

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said on Friday patients taking weight-loss drugs such as Novo Nordisk's Wegovy should inform their doctor ahead of surgery, due to the risk of respiratory complications potentially associated with such drugs. Weight-loss drugs, including Wegovy and Eli Lilly's Zepbound and Mounjaro, belong to a class known as GLP-1 receptor agonists that slow the process of emptying food contents from the stomach, making users feel full for longer.

Intensifying Congo conflict puts 1 million children at risk of acute malnutrition

More than one million children are at risk from acute malnutrition in Democratic Republic of Congo as rising violence drives up needs among millions of displaced people, the World Health Organization said on Friday. The impact on civilians of the more than two-year conflict between Congolese forces and the Rwanda-backed M23 militia in eastern areas of the country is worsening, causing more people to flee with 2.7 million displaced in North Kivu alone.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)