Annan
hails panel report
on revamping world body
UNITED
NATIONS, Nov 10: United Nations
Secretary-General Kofi Annan has welcomed
a high-level coherence panel’s
report on revamping the
organisation’s development,
humanitarian and environment portfolio,
calling it ambitious yet realistic.
"We
all now have a solemn obligation to seize
the opportunity the panel has offered,
and to take its recommendations forward
with the same energy and sense of urgency
that its members devoted to formulate
them," Mr Annan said, after
receiving the High-level Panel on UN
System-wide Coherence in the Areas of
Development, Humanitarian
Assistance,
and the Environment report from panel
co-chairs, the Prime Ministers of Norway
and Pakistan.
"The
changes proposed will enable the UN to
respond better to new challenges, and
support countries more effectively in
their efforts to achieve development
goals," he told an informal meeting
of the General Assembly yesterday.
"I
sincerely hope that together we will be
able to carry out their recommendations,
and thus make the UN system stronger,
more coherent and responsive to the needs
of people everywhere."
The
report, titled Delivering as One,
recommended a country-level consolidation
of UN agencies, the strengthening of
leadership on humanitarian and
environmental activities, and the
creation of both a new funding system and
new women’s organisation.
The panel,
led jointly by Prime Ministers Lumsa Dias
Diogo, Mozambique, Jens Stoltenberg,
Norway, and Shaukat Aziz, Pakistan,
released the report, which global leaders
requested at the 2005 World Summit in New
York to lay the groundwork for a
fundamental restructuring of UN work in
the field.
"No
one facing today’s challenges would
design the UN system as it currently
stands. To leave it the way it is would
mean giving in to short-term national and
institutional interests," said Mr
Stoltenberg.
The report
stated that currently the UN’s work
on development is fragmented, weak and
not properly structured to meet country
needs, with more than one-third of UN
Country Teams have ten or more agencies
on the ground, and several with more than
20, resulting in ‘incoherent’
programme interventions and
‘excessive’ administrative
costs.
"We
have proposed a bold but realistic
agenda for action," Mr Aziz
said.
"It
should ensure that the UN is well funded,
and can respond more effectively to the
needs of countries and communities
everywhere."
Among
recommendations was establishing
"One UN" Country Programmes,
which would streamline UN agency
activities and be led by resident
coordinator and handled by a strategic
Sustainable Development Board that would
eventually bring together boards of the
UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN
Population Fund (UNFPA) and the UN
Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The UNDP
administrator would serve as a UN
Development Coordinator, reporting to the
Sustainable Development Board, the report
suggested.
The panel
also suggested testing the "One
UN" programme in half- adozen
countries next year to pave the way to a
possible system-wide overhaul.
"We
want the UN to be a strategic player at
the country level, supporting us in the
preparation and implementation of our
nationally-owned development
strategies," Mr Diogo said. (UNI)
Perrigo
recalls 11 million bottles of pain killer
NEW YORK, Nov 10: Generic drugmaker
Perrigo Co is recalling 11 million
bottles of over-the-counter pain killer
acetaminophen caplets after finding metal
fragments in some batches, US health
officials said.
The
500-milligram pills sold as store brands
may have been sent to dozens of outlets
around the United States, including
including some owned by Wal-Mart,
Safeway, CVS and Food Lion, the US Food
and Drug Administration (FDA) said
yesterday.
No
injuries or illnesses have been linked to
the products, the manufacturer and the
FDA said.
Shares of
Perrigo, the world’s largest
manufacturer of store-brand
pharmaceutical and nutritional products,
fell 5.6 per cent to close at 17 dollars
on Nasdaq.
The FDA
said in a statement that it believed that
based on available information the
probability of serious adverse health
consequences was remote.
"However,
if a consumer were to swallow an affected
caplet, it could result in minor stomach
discomfort and/or possible cuts to the
mouth or throat," the FDA said.
Acetaminophen
is the active ingredient in Johnson &
Johnson’s Tylenol but also is sold
generically by various manufacturers.
Tylenol is not subject to the recall.
Consumers
should not take the recalled caplets and
should consult a doctor if they think
they may have been harmed, the FDA said.
Perrigo
said it found one in 400,000 caplets may
have contained metal traces.
FDA
officials could not say if the caplets
had been distributed nationwide or were
concentrated in some regions.
The agency
urged consumers to check its Web site for
a list of stores that Perrigo supplied.
It also provided numbers for each of the
recalled 383 batches and said consumers
could check the product label for a
matching number.
The
stores can be found at
www.Fda.Gov/oc/po/firmrecalls/perrigo/perrigocustlist.Html
<http://www.Fda.Gov/oc/po/firmrecalls/perrigo/perrigocustlist.Html>, while the batch
numbers are online at
www.Fda.Gov/oc/po/firmrecalls/perrigo/perrigobatchlist.Html
<http://www.Fda.Gov/oc/po/firmrecalls/perrigo/perrigobatchlist.Html>.
CVS Corp
said it would stop selling certain size
packages of its CVS brand acetaminophen
500-milligram caplets until further
notice.
Agency
officials said they and Perrigo were
investigating the source of the metal and
had no reason to suspect the caplets had
been intentionally contaminated.
Perrigo
said it had traced the source of metal
fragments to a third-party supplier,
which it did not name.
Some of
the caplets were made as long as three
years ago with expiration dates ranging
from September 2006 to August 2009, FDA
officials said.
Perrigo
discovered the problem after finding some
manufacturing equipment was wearing down
prematurely, the FDA said. The company
passed 70 million caplets through a metal
detector and found about 200 contained
metal fragments ranging in size from
"microdots" to "portions
of wire 8 millimeters in length,"
the FDA added.
Most
metal fragments were the size of two
grains of salt, Perrigo said.
The
company said it was is in possession of
100 per cent of the batch that originally
prompted the investigation.
Perrigo
told the FDA about the finding on
november one, said Fred Richman, head of
compliance management and operations in a
division of the FDA’s regulatory
affairs office. Perrigo said it informed
the agency on November second.
Perrigo,
based in Allegan, Michigan, said the
recall was expected to cost 2.9 million
dollars.
Its fiscal
first-quarter results will now include an
after-tax charge of 667,000 dollars, or
one cent a share, because of the recall,
reducing its quarterly earnings to 18
cents a share, Perrigo said. It also
reaffirmed its earnings outlook.
The
company has in the past recalled other
products containing acetaminophen,
including a children’s liquid pain
reliever in 2005 because of an unmarked
dosing syringe.
In 1999,
Perrigo recalled 44,736 bottles of
500-milligram acetaminophen pills from
dozens of stores because of
mold.(AGENCIES)
Modified
virus kills brain cancer in mice
NEW YORK, Nov 10: An engineered form
of a virus can infect and kill malignant
glioma cells while leaving normal cells
unharmed, according to new research
findings.
In its
natural form, vesicular stomatitis virus
(VSV) is a potent cancer-killer in a
number of tumor cell types, including
brain tumors called gliomas, but it can
be lethal. "We engineered VSV to
make it safer," Dr Peter A Forsyth,
of the Clark Smith Integrative Brain
Center at the University of Calgary,
Canada, noted in comments to Reuters
Health.
The
researchers evaluated the susceptibility
of 14 malignant glioma cell lines to
infection and killing by the modified
VSV. It infected and killed all 14 cell
lines but had no effect in normal cell
lines, the team reports in the Journal of
the National Cancer Institute.
In mice
carrying human malignant glioma, the
tumor regressed markedly after it was
injected with modified VSV. When the
agent was given intravenously, mice
treated with live mutant VSV survived
significantly longer than those injected
with dead virus.
This
means, Forsyth pointed out, that mutant
VSV "can be given intravenously
rather than injected directly into the
brain, so it’s easier for patients
than an operation and if needed it can be
given several times as an
outpatient."
Modified
VSV "is promising in mice and we are
excited about it," he told Reuters
Health, "but we need to be cautious
and continue to evaluate it before moving
into a clinical trial." (AGENCIES)
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