2 more studies link heart drug to deaths

2 more studies link
heart drug to deaths

ATLANTA — Heart surgery patients were more likely to die if given the anti-bleeding drug Trasylol, two more U.S. studies have found, renewing the claims that the drug is dangerous.

Bayer AG stopped selling the drug last fall, after a Canadian study was halted because of deaths among patients taking Trasylol.

But the new research reignited controversy over Trasylol, which was on the market for 14 years and used by doctors to treat hundreds of thousands of heart bypass patients each year.

Bayer funded one of the two new studies, and had the preliminary results before a September 2006 federal hearing on the drug’s safety — but did not present them.

The company issued a statement this week saying both the new studies are flawed. But the spokesman for a consumer advocacy group said the studies are convincing confirmation of the drug’s dangers.

Police: It’s not Madeleine

MONTPELLIER, France — Police investigating an alleged sighting last week of Madeleine McCann in southern France have determined it was not the missing British girl, a police official said Wednesday.

Investigators had taken seriously a Dutch tourist’s account that she believed she saw McCann at a roadside restaurant near the city of Montpellier on Feb. 15, a police official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk publicly on the matter.

After viewing closed-circuit video footage, police investigators spotted a man and a young girl who indeed resembled the missing British girl, but determined it was not McCann after a thorough inspection, the official said.

The file has been transferred to a state prosecutor in Montpellier, the official said. He declined to give further information.

On Wednesday, Dutch newspaper De Gelderlander interviewed Melissa Firing, 18, who said she was sure the girl she saw was McCann because of the way she reacted when she called her name, and because she was able to look her in the eyes.

McCann has been missing since May 3, 2007, when she disappeared during a family vacation in Praia da Luz, Portugal. She was a few days from her 4th birthday when she vanished.

Ex-MI6 official: Agency
didn’t kill Diana, Dodi

LONDON — The former head of MI6 denied Wednesday that the British intelligence agency killed Diana, Princess of Wales, and her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, in 1997.

Sir Richard Dearlove, who was MI6’s director of special operations at the time of Diana’s Paris death, told a coroner’s inquest that MI6 didn’t assassinate anyone between 1994 and 1999, when he was director of special operations.

Assassination, he said, was contrary to government policy, and he was unaware of any such activity by the agency during his career.

He also denied that MI6 mounted any operations directed at her or Fayed, including surveillance or bugging, and took no particular interest in her campaign against land mines.

Dearlove also testified that an operation by rogue agents would have been “impossible.”

Fayed’s father, Mohamed Al Fayed, has accused MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, of engineering the death of his son and the princess at the behest of Prince Philip, husband of Queen Elizabeth II.

Pileup on I-94 in Indiana

MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. — More than two dozen cars and trucks piled up in a chain-reaction wreck Wednesday on a slippery section of Interstate 94 in northern Indiana, police said.

No serious injuries were reported, state police Sgt. Ann Wojas said.

Up to 3 inches of snow fell in the area during the night and snow was falling heavily at the time of the midmorning crash, which closed a six-mile stretch of I-94’s westbound lanes for about seven hours.

Wojas said the crash involved 15 cars and 12 tractor-trailer rigs about three miles east of the Michigan City exit on I-94.

“I know five of the semis are all mangled into one, and a couple of the trailers have been split open,” Wojas said.

Vote to ratify contract

LOS ANGELES — Members of the Directors Guild of America voted to ratify a new contract that increases compensation for projects distributed on the Internet and other digital media, the union said Wednesday.

The guild did not release a vote tally but said the three-year deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers received overwhelming approval.

It includes union jurisdiction over some projects created for the Internet and payments for ad-supported online streaming based on distributor grosses.

Associated Press