Health Highlights: Nov. 20, 2008

However, there's one major difference between Obama's position and that of the insurance industry, the Times reported. The industry wants the federal government to require all Americans to have and maintain insurance, while Obama wants the rule, at least initially, to apply only to children.

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Lung Cancer Drug Trial Halted

A late-stage clinical trial of the experimental lung cancer drug motesanib was halted because patients taking the drug had higher early death rates than patients taking a placebo.

The trial by U.S.-based Amgen and Japan's Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. was stopped after an independent monitoring committee noted the pattern of deaths among the study's 600 patients with non-small cell lung cancer, Bloomberg news reported.

Motesanib was designed to starve tumor cells of the blood supply they need to grow by blocking a protein called VEGF, which is involved in the growth of blood vessels that feed tumors.

The clinical trial suspension applies only to patients with the squamous non-small cell form of cancer, Bloomberg reported. Amgen said the monitoring committee didn't recommend suspension of the study for patients with the non-squamous form of the lung cancer.

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China Introduces New Rules for Dairy Industry

A number of new food safety measures designed to tackle problems in the dairy industry were announced Thursday by the Chinese government. The new rules will cover all areas of the industry, including cow breeding, animal feed, and packaging and sales of milk, The New York Times reported.

The action is in response to the melamine-tainted milk powder scandal, which claimed the lives of at least four infants and sickened more than 50,000 Chinese children. Chinese milk products have been recalled worldwide, and the scandal has embarrassed the Chinese government and caused major damage to the country's dairy farmers and milk producers.

"The crisis has put China's diary industry in peril and exposed major problems existing in the quality control and supervision of the industry,"an official with China's National Development and Reform Commission said in a posting on the agency's Web site, the Times reported.

The tainted milk crisis is the latest in a series of problems with China's agriculture industry.