clinical trials news stories on Newser

Multiple Sclerosis Treatment: Parasitic Worms

Mark Russell — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 06:52:37 CDT

The fight against multiple sclerosis has found an unexpected ally—parasitic worms. Researchers in the United States and Denmark are looking into the eggs of pig whipworms, which can reduce the size of the MS brain lesions and the effects of the disease, while doctors in the UK are studying...

Insider Trading Suspect Jumps to His Death

Rob Quinn — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 01:41:00 CDT

An executive accused of illegally profiting from inside knowledge of his company's promising new cancer drug jumped to his death from an airport parking garage in New Jersey. Zizhong Fan, manager of clinical programming at Seattle Genetics, is believed to have shared insider information on clinical trials involving the company's...

US Prescription Drugs Tested on World's Poor

Rob Quinn — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 18:02:05 CST

Prescription drugs that are considered safe kill an estimated 200,000 Americans a year, and investigative reporters Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele have exposed a massive loophole that could help explain why. Some 6,485 clinical trials were conducted abroad in 2008—more than 20 times as many...

First US Stem Cell Trials Begin

Rob Quinn — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 03:25:04 CDT

American scientists have begun testing embryonic stem cells on a patient for the first time. The groundbreaking, federally-approved clinical trial involves injecting millions of the cells into a patient who suffered paralysis after a recent spinal cord injury, reports Reuters . Scientists hope the stem cells will regenerate nerves in the...

When Clinical Trials Kill

Evann Gastaldo — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 11:36:15 CDT

Dan Markingson was a happy, smart 26-year-old from Minnesota, until the day his mother visited him in Los Angeles and found him delusional, even murderous. He was hospitalized in November 2003 and would have been involuntarily committed—but he was granted a stay, on the condition that he comply with...

A Few Nasty Germs May Actually Help Babies

Kevin Spak — Tue, 18 May 2010 12:18:00 CDT

Babies in America tend to be a lot cleaner than those in, say, Namibia, and that has some advantages—most notably a drastically lower infant mortality rate. But scientists are beginning to wonder if our obsessively sanitary culture has actually given rise to various health issues, they tell the Wall...

Weight Watchers Sues Jenny Craig Over Ad

Kevin Spak — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:31:47 CST

Weight Watchers is suing Jenny Craig over a commercial in which the weight loss company claims that a “major clinical trial” showed that the average Jenny customer lost twice as much weight "as those on the largest weight-loss program.” That’d be Weight Watchers, which says its rival lied, reports Bloomberg...

AIDS Vaccine Data Overstated

Kevin Spak — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:36:18 CDT

The data from last month’s much-hyped Thai AIDS vaccine trial are actually statistically insignificant, according to a secondary analysis published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. The original results from the trial, which included more than 16,000 people, concluded that the vaccine reduced infections by a statistically...

Swine Flu Vaccine Works in One Dose

Kevin Spak — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 07:11:40 CDT

An Australian H1N1 vaccine has been surpassing expectations in its clinical trials, inoculating patients after a single injection, the New York Times reports. That means the supply of the vaccine will go further and cost less. It should now be possible to inoculate all of the estimated 159 million people...