The Star Online: Metro: Sunday Metro
The Star Online: Metro: Sunday Metro |
| 17 deaths reported in Japan after drug injections Posted: 09 Apr 2014 05:47 AM PDT TOKYO, April 09, 2014 (AFP) - The Japanese unit of major drugmaker Janssen Pharmaceuticals says 17 people have died after being injected with its drug to treat schizophrenia since it was launched in Japan last November. The company, an affiliate of US-based healthcare giant Johnson and Johnson, advised medical workers in Japan to use the Paliperidone Palmitate medication with great care even though it was not know whether it had caused the deaths. The drug, brand-named Xeplion, is estimated to have been used by 10,700 people since it was released in Japan on November 19, according to a notice posted on the Japanese unit's website and seen Wednesday. The causes of the 17 deaths included cardiac infarction, pulmonary embolism and suffocation due to inhalation of vomit. In many cases the deaths occured about 40 days after injections of the drug. The notice advised doctors to "fully understand that the substance remains in the body for at least four months after being injected" and to stay alert for any side-effects. It also asked them to refrain from using the medicine with other anti-psychotic drugs because the "effectiveness and safety" of such a combined application had not been established. The use of Xeplion has been approved in 78 countries and areas of the world as of June 2013, the company has said. |
| India's mission to Mars crosses half-way mark Posted: 09 Apr 2014 05:44 AM PDT BANGALORE, India, April 09, 2014 (AFP) - India's first mission to Mars successfully crossed the half-way mark on Wednesday, four months after leaving on an voyage to the Red Planet scheduled to take 11 months, the space agency said. "The spacecraft crossed the half-way mark Wednesday at 9:50am on its journey to Mars," the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said in a statement from the southern city of Bangalore. "The spacecraft and its five scientific instruments are in good health." The gold-coloured probe, the size of a small car, will aim to detect methane in the Martian atmosphere, which could provide evidence of some sort of life form on the fourth planet from the Sun. The country has never before attempted inter-planetary travel, and more than half of all missions to Mars have ended in failure, including China's in 2011 and Japan's in 2003. The low-cost Mars Orbiter Mission, known as "Mangalyaan" in India, was revealed in August 2012 by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, shortly after China's attempt flopped. The timing and place of the announcement - in an Independence Day speech - led to speculation that India was seeking to make a point to its militarily and economically superior neighbour, despite denials from ISRO. NASA has also launched a spacecraft to Mars, on a mission to study how the air on the planet has changed over time, and is also expected to reach its destination in September. India's mission cost 4.5 billion rupees ($75 million), a fraction of the cost of the US unmanned MAVEN spacecraft at $671 million. |
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