Oct 22nd, 2021 - Oct 22 (Reuters) - The U.S. budget deficit totaled $2.772 trillion during fiscal 2021, below the prior year’s record shortfall but still reflecting a second straight year of massive spending to support households and businesses through the coronavirus pandemic, the Treasury Department said on Friday. The United States posted a deficit of $3.132 trillion in fiscal 2020, when the federal governme...

Oct 22nd, 2021 - (Reuters) - Russia reported a fourth straight daily record of COVID-19 deaths with a week to go before the start of a workplace shutdown ordered by President Vladimir Putin, while Germany’s seven-day incidence rate rose sharply over the past week. * The UK Health Security Agency designated a Delta subvariant called AY.4.2 as a “Variant Under Investigation”, saying on Friday there was some evide...

Oct 22nd, 2021 - Patients with unresectable large-volume liver cancer lived significantly longer when treated with hepatic-artery infusion chemotherapy (HAIC) than with transarterial chemoembolization (TACE), a randomized trial from China showed. Median overall survival (OS) increased from 16.1 months with TACE to 23.1 months with FOLFOX (leucovorin, fluorouracil, and oxaliplatin)-HAIC. Progression-free surviva...

Oct 22nd, 2021 - WASHINGTON, Oct 22 (Reuters) - The Washington-area subway system said Friday it will continue sharply reduced subway service through at least Oct. 31 as it works to finalize plans to return most of its railcars to service after an Oct. 12 derailment. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) on Sunday was ordered to indefinitely remove about 60% of the subway system’s railcars ...

Oct 22nd, 2021 - Drinking more than three cups of caffeinated coffee a day is associated with less liver stiffness, according to an analysis of a nationally representative survey, which was recently published in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology. amenic181/Getty Images The study is likely the most rigorous look to date on the benefits of coffee on liver health in the U.

Oct 22nd, 2021 - (Updates prices, adds analyst comment) Oct 22 (Reuters) - Canada’s main stock index was little changed on Friday, as weakness in technology and healthcare stocks offset commodity-linked gains, however the benchmark index was on course for its third straight week of gains. At 9:42 a.m. ET (13:42 GMT), the Toronto Stock Exchange’s S&P/TSX composite index was down 5.76 points, or 0.03%, at 21,206....

Oct 22nd, 2021 - Clinical advances in the treatment of small cell lung cancer (SCLC) have lagged behind those of other tumor types, but the delay is not for lack of effort. In recent years, however, improved understanding of disease biology has identified some novel targets that may make these tumors more vulnerable to treatment. One such approach in the frontline setting has been the integration of various imm...

Oct 22nd, 2021 - Oct 22 (Reuters) - Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc said on Friday customers can start receiving booster COVID-19 shots from Moderna Inc and Johnson & Johnson at its U.S. stores. The move comes after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday recommended the additional doses and said Americans can choose a different shot from their original inoculation as a booster.

Oct 22nd, 2021 - SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- At least 21 states still don't provide Medicaid coverage for penile implants in patients with erectile dysfunction (ED), a new study found. In contrast, 49 states cover male urethral slings, and 48 states cover insertion of artificial urinary sphincters for male incontinence, reported John Barnard, MD, of West Virginia University in Morgantown, who presented the findings at...

Oct 22nd, 2021 - BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungary’s main doctors’ association on Friday urged Hungarians not immunised against COVID-19 to stay away from mass rallies this weekend amid a rise in cases across central Europe. The region has the European Union’s lowest vaccination rates, an unwelcome distinction in which both political and economic factors play a role, and deadlier variants of the virus are spreading ...

Oct 22nd, 2021 - NEW YORK, Oct 21 (Reuters) - The Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine showed 90.7% efficacy against the coronavirus in a clinical trial of five to 11 year olds, the U.S. drugmaker said on Friday. Sixteen children in the trial who had received a placebo got COVID-19, compared with 3 who were vaccinated, Pfizer said in briefing documents submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Because mor...

Oct 22nd, 2021 - (Reuters) - Direct-to-consumer DNA testing firm 23andMe Holding Co said on Friday it would buy privately held company Lemonaid Health Inc for $400 million in a cash-and-stock deal, as it looks to expand into telemedicine. Lemonaid Health offers patients direct online access for a number of common conditions, from consultation through treatment. It also offers free and fast delivery of prescript...

Oct 22nd, 2021 - Oct 22 (Reuters) - Hospital operator HCA Healthcare Inc reported a 240% rise in third-quarter profit on Friday, driven primarily by the sale of four hospitals in Georgia. Net income attributable to HCA rose to $2.27 billion, or $7.00 per share, in the quarter ended Sept. 30, from $668 million, or $1.95 per share, a year earlier.

Oct 22nd, 2021 - Oct 22 (Reuters) - Consumer genetic company 23andMe Holding Co said on Friday it will buy privately held telehelath company Lemonaid Health Inc for $400 million in a cash-and-stock deal. (Reporting by Dania Nadeem in Bengaluru)

Oct 22nd, 2021 - Relatively young people -- ranging from 38 to 59 years old -- showed cognitive dysfunction or "brain fog" months after being diagnosed with COVID-19, a cross-sectional study found. More than 7 months after acute infection, a substantial proportion of COVID-19 patients exhibited deficits in processing speed, executive functioning, category fluency, memory encoding, and recall, reported Jacquelin...

Oct 22nd, 2021 - SINGAPORE (Reuters) -Few are left to inoculate in wealthy Singapore after a vigorous campaign achieved a level of coverage envied by many nations battling the coronavirus pandemic, but a record surge in deaths and infections gives warning of risks that may still lie ahead. Despite mask mandates, strict social curbs and COVID-19 booster doses available for over a month, infections in the Asian c...

Oct 22nd, 2021 - Note that some links may require registration or subscription. In briefing documents submitted ahead of an FDA advisory committee meeting, Pfizer said its lower-dose COVID-19 vaccine showed 90.7% efficacy (95% CI 67.7-98.3) against symptomatic infection for kids ages 5 to 11. No end in sight -- at least, not yet -- for emergence of new COVID variants. (AP) India just passed the 1 billion-dose m...

Oct 22nd, 2021 - TOKYO, Oct 22 (Reuters) - SoftBank Group Corp is in talks to sell the Paris-based robotics business behind its Pepper android to Germany’s United Robotics Group, according to sources and documents reviewed by Reuters, scaling back a business it once touted as a major growth driver. The talks are ongoing and plans could change, said two sources familiar with the matter, who declined to be named ...

Oct 22nd, 2021 - BEIJING, Oct 22 (Reuters) - Tencent’s WeChat has made its content searchable on some foreign search engines such as Google, and Microsoft’s Bing, according to Reuters checks. WeChat’s content, including articles and videos on its popular public accounts page, a function similar to a news portal, has opened to external search engines, other than its own Sogou search engine, in recent days. (Repo...

Oct 22nd, 2021 - WASHINGTON, Oct 21 (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department said on Thursday it had certified Mexico under a law that prohibits the import of shrimp harvested in ways that may adversely affect sea turtle species, allowing for imports of wild-caught shrimp from Mexico to resume. The department said in a statement it had notified the U.S. Congress of the certification based on a determination that “...