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Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of HealthDay:

FDA Preparing New Warning on Antidepressants-Kids' Suicide Link

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is preparing new warnings on the link between antidepressant use and suicidal tendencies in children, according to agency documents released Friday.

The new warnings were prompted by a new FDA analysis that backed earlier studies of the link, the Associated Press reported.

Exactly what the warnings will say, and which drugs will be affected, hasn't been settled, according to the FDA documents. The agency will take the debate to its scientific advisers next month for help in deciding.

"While there remains a signal of risk ... for some drugs in some trials, it is important to note that the data are not black-and-white in providing a clear and definitive answer," FDA psychiatric drugs chief Dr. Thomas Laughren wrote the advisory panel this week.

The agency's move follows release of an internal memo this week, written by one of its top scientists, who claimed the new research confirmed last year's findings that antidepressants increase the risk of suicide in children.

Dr. Andrew D. Mosholder, a senior FDA epidemiologist who assesses the safety of medicines, concluded last year that the results of 22 studies showed an almost-doubled risk of suicide for children taking antidepressants, The New York Times reported. But Mosholder's superiors disputed his findings and sought a new analysis.

In this week's internal memo, Mosholder wrote that the new analysis found that the antidepressants Paxil and Effexor are even more likely to cause suicidal behavior in children than last year's studies showed, his memo said.

The controversy over antidepressant use by kids has simmered since last year, when British health authorities declared that a list of popular antidepressants might sometimes increase the risk of suicidal behavior in children and teenagers, and declared all but one -- Prozac -- unsuitable for depressed youth, AP reported.

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Jane Pauley Reveals She Has Bipolar Disorder

TV journalist Jane Pauley says in her forthcoming autobiography that she has bipolar disorder.

Pauley writes in "Skywriting: A Life Out of the Blue" that she takes lithium to control the mood swings that are characteristic of the disorder, according to NBC News.

The 53-year-old Pauley said the problem began in 2001 when she came down with a severe case of hives. She took steroids and had a rare reaction that triggered the bipolar disorder.

Pauley said her moods swung dangerously. "You would have thought I was just a little more vivid than you, uh, you might have thought that I was just a little more on. I would have been talking probably faster and a little louder, but you wouldn't say I was swinging off the chandeliers," Pauley told NBC colleague Stone Phillips in an interview. "(I was) a little amped up. I never was at that psychotic level."

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U.S. Probes Purchasing Practices in Health-Care Industry

The U.S. government has launched a broad investigation into purchasing practices within the health-care industry to determine if it's leading to substantial overcharges to Medicare and other health programs, The New York Times reported Saturday.

The Justice Department is apparently trying to determine whether hospitals and other medical care providers are overcharging Medicare and other publicly-funded insurance programs for a wide range of goods -- from rubber gloves to drugs to X-ray machines, the newspaper said.

According to the Times, the probe appears to be focusing on the way "suppliers market products to clinics, hospitals and nursing homes that serve Medicare and Medicaid patients, and whether those institutions properly account for the purchases."

The central issue, according to current and former industry executives interviewed by the newspaper, is whether the medical supply industry's use of "rebates, discounts, barter arrangements and refunds to hospitals and other medical centers means that Medicare and Medicaid are being charged higher prices for products than the hospitals are actually spending."

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Vermont Sues Federal Govt. to Import Drugs From Canada

Vermont officials filed suit Friday against U.S. Health and Human Services Commissioner Tommy G. Thompson and Acting Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Lester M. Crawford over the FDA's refusal to allow the state to establish a program to import prescription drugs from Canada.

The drugs, which are substantially cheaper than medications available in the United States, would be used for the state's Employee Medical Benefit Plan.

The FDA said it would "vigorously defend against the lawsuit."

The action came on the same day that Rx Depot, a drug importation company, agreed in a "consent decree" to stop shipping unapproved drugs from Canada to the United States, the FDA announced.

"The defendants' illegal importation of drugs posed a significant public health threat," the FDA's Crawford said in a prepared statement. "This Consent Decree sends a clear signal that those who would put profit before safety will not be allowed to threaten the public health."

"The defendants caused the illegal importation of prescription drugs from Canada. The defendants accepted prescriptions from U.S. customers, sent these to a Canadian pharmacy partner, and received a commission from the Canadian pharmacy when the pharmacy sent prescription drugs directly to U.S. customers," an FDA news release stated.

The consent decree says that Rx Depot and CanaRx have permanently ceased operations. CanaRx, which the FDA said had been based in Detroit, had earlier shut its U.S. offices and moved to Canada, the Associated Press reported. Rx Depot had its storefronts shut by a federal judge's order last year.

The announcement comes as U.S. states, cities and millions of citizens turn to Canada as a source of cheaper prescription medications. In May, attorneys general from 18 states sent Thompson a letter asking that he let states import low-cost drugs from Canada.

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California Records 6th West Nile Death

A 60-year-old man has become the sixth person in California to die from West Nile virus this year, state officials announced.

That means California has the highest death toll so far this year, followed by Louisiana, which has reported five deaths from the virus.

Raul Cuevas, who had a number of chronic health problems including heart disease and diabetes, died Aug. 12 from encephalitis caused by West Nile virus. It's likely he was bitten by a mosquito at his home in the eastern portion of Los Angeles County, the Associated Press reported.

So far this year, Los Angeles County has reported 70 confirmed cases of West Nile virus. There have been nearly 200 cases reported in the state.

The virus has killed at least 20 people in the United States this year. Last year, 262 people in the United States died from the virus.

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