WASHINGTON -- U.S. health officials urged pediatricians Monday to temporarily stop using one of two vaccines against a leading cause of diarrhea in babies, after discovering that doses of GlaxoSmithKline's Rotarix were contaminated with bits of an apparently benign pig virus.
Glaxo's vaccine has been used in millions of children worldwide, including 1 million in the U.S., with no signs of safety problems -- and the pig virus isn't known to cause any kind of illness in people or animals, said Dr. Margaret Hamburg, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.
But vaccines are supposed to be sterile, and because there is a competing vaccine against diarrhea-causing rotavirus that has tested clean -- Merck's RotaTeq -- the FDA decided to err on the side of caution.
"We don't want to scare parents," Hamburg told reporters. "This was a difficult decision for us to make because there is no evidence at this time that there is a risk to patients who have received this vaccine, and we know there are real benefits for children to be vaccinated against rotavirus."
Activist group ACORN folding
CHICAGO -- The once mighty community activist group ACORN announced Monday it is folding amid falling revenues -- six months after video footage emerged showing some of its workers giving tax tips to conservative activists posing as a pimp and prostitute.
"It's really declining revenue in the face of a series of attacks from partisan operatives and right-wing activists that have taken away our ability to raise the resources we need," ACORN spokesman Kevin Whelan said.
Several of its largest affiliates, including ACORN New York and ACORN California, broke away this year and changed their names in a bid to ditch the tarnished image of their parent organization and restore revenue that ran dry in the wake of the video scandal.
ACORN's financial situation and reputation went into free fall within days of the videos' release in September. Congress reacted by yanking ACORN's federal funding, private donors held back cash and scores of ACORN offices closed.
Firms drop court appeal in case
HOUSTON -- Halliburton Co. and KBR Inc. have withdrawn an appeal asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block a lawsuit by a former military contractor who says she was raped by KBR co-workers in Iraq.
KBR said in a statement Monday that it withdrew the appeal to not risk violating a recently passed federal provision it called "very broad and vague," that restricts the Defense Department from doing business with companies that prohibit employees from seeking redress for certain crimes through the courts.
"As a result, KBR did not want to risk being in violation of the amendment, so the company withdrew its petition," KBR said in a statement.
Diana Gabriel, a spokeswoman for Halliburton, also confirmed the appeal was withdrawn but declined to elaborate.
Jamie Leigh Jones, of Texas, sued the companies after she says she was raped while working for KBR in Baghdad in 2005. KBR and Halliburton split in 2007.
The companies argued that Jones' contract required claims against them be settled through arbitration.
-- From wire reports
