Lost documents prevented victims from finding out the truth, official inquiry told Disastrous failures that caused the contaminated blood scandal were denied by ministers for decades after officials destroyed, lost and blocked access to key documents, memos submitted to the official inquiry reveal. Several batches of files involving the work of a blood safety advisory committee were shredded as the government faced the threat of legal action, documents show. Patients who were given contaminated blood when they were children have also told the infected blood inquiry how their hospital medical f ..read more

UK medicines regulator says information on boxes of montelukast will alert users to risk of mood and behaviour changes More than 500 adverse neuropsychiatric reactions have been reported in children under the age of nine involving an asthma drug which is to get new warnings over its risks. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) announced last week that more prominent warnings would be added to the information provided on boxes of the asthma drug montelukast, sold under the brand name Singulair ..read more

Inadvertent poisoning of scavengers across Indian subcontinent is forcing some communities to give up ancient custom Traditional Zoroastrian burial rites are becoming increasingly impossible to perform because of the precipitous decline of vultures in India, Iran and Pakistan. For millennia, Parsi communities have traditionally disposed of their dead in structures called dakhma, or “towers of silence”. These circular, elevated edifices are designed to prevent the soil, and the sacred elements of earth, fire and water, from being contaminated by corpses ..read more

Novo Nordisk, which is now Europe’s most valuable company, also reports strong sales of diabetes drug Ozempic Strong sales of diabetes and weight loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy have prompted the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk to raise its 2024 profit forecast to up to £15.3bn, with supply shortages starting to ease. Europe’s most valuable company, whose stock market value exceeds the size of the Danish economy, has struggled to keep up with runaway demand for the two weight-loss jabs ..read more

Deal would resolve tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging company’s baby powder causes ovarian cancer Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is moving forward with a $6.475bn proposed settlement of tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging that its baby powder and other talcum-powder products were contaminated with asbestos and caused ovarian cancer, the company said on Wednesday in a statement. The company discontinued sales of its baby powder in North America in 2020, and worldwide in 2023. The company now sells a cornstarch-based formula, though it continues to insist on the safety of talc products ..read more

Exclusive: ‘Distressing’ scarcity sowing uncertainty among 400,000 with type 1 diabetes, experts warn People with type 1 diabetes are being forced to endure the “stress and anxiety” of insulin shortages, patients, pharmacists and health campaigners have warned. The “distressing” drug scarcity, the latest to affect the UK, is sowing uncertainty for the 400,000 people with the condition, with some products not available again until next year amid global manufacturing shortages ..read more

Documents show officials were told blood plasma harvested from US convicts was contaminated with viruses • Read more: the true story of the UK infected blood scandal; plus: ‘My mum gave the injections that killed my brothers’ A commercial blood product at the centre of the biggest treatment scandal in the history of the NHS was approved for use after government officials were told convicts were among the paid donors and virus contamination “should be assumed”, corporate filings reveal. The product, given to ­haemophiliacs to enable their blood to clot, was injected into thousands of patients i ..read more

Readers respond to a letter which said that MDMA is not helpful in mental health care Rachel McNulty (Letters, 19 April) is right to emphasise the need for proper funding of integrated mental health care and social support, but wrong to dismiss MDMA based on a single anecdotal case. I can provide a number of counter-anecdotes showing the value of MDMA to mental health, including a friend of mine who has said that it saved him from taking his life in his youth. However, science-based healthcare is not about anecdotes, but systematically gathered evidence and controlled trials. Such trials are a ..read more

Exclusive: MSF calls for transparency after its bill for a trial of TB treatment came to a fraction of the billions claimed by pharmaceutical companies Doctors have for the first time released details of their spending on a major clinical trial, demonstrating that the true cost of developing a medicine may be far less than the billions of dollars claimed by the pharmaceutical industry. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is challenging drug companies to be transparent about the cost of trials, which has always been shrouded in secrecy. Its own bill for landmark trials of a four-drug combination tre ..read more

Exclusive: NHS cost threshold has not been raised by National Institute for Health and Care Excellence since 2004 People with motor neurone disease have spoken of their devastation over the likely loss of access to a life-extending drug due to an NHS cost threshold that has not been raised since 2004. Tofersen has slowed the progress of the illness in trials, but the chances of the drug being recommended for use in England and Wales are said to be slim ..read more