BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany’s federal agency for infectious diseases said on Tuesday there were signs the H1N1 swine flu virus had started to mutate and warned it could spread in the coming months in a more aggressive form.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Matrixx Initiatives has started to notify U.S. customers of its recall of nasal versions of its Zicam cold remedy, a week after U.S. regulators told the company to stop selling the products.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Consumers, insurance companies and the federal government spend an extra .5 billion for prescription drugs every year because brand-name companies pay generic producers to stay out of the market, the head of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Monday hailed a deal with U.S. drug companies to cut prescription costs for the elderly, a move that could help him drive his ambitious healthcare reforms through Congress.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans are struggling to pay for healthcare in the ongoing economic recession, with a quarter saying they have had trouble in the past 12 months, according to a survey released on Monday.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Doctors in the United States fail to tell patients about abnormal test results 7 percent of the time, or a rate of about 1 out of every 14 tests, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

BOSTON (Reuters) - A coalition of 15 U.S. states filed a complaint in federal court charging that drugmaker Wyeth avoided paying millions of dollars of rebates to state Medicaid programs that had purchased its Protonix drugs, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said on Monday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama, citing his own struggle to give up smoking, signed a law on Monday giving the U.S. government broad regulatory power for the first time over cigarettes and other tobacco products.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Growing worries over budget deficits and government intervention could jeopardize President Barack Obama’s proposed healthcare overhaul in Congress as lawmakers bicker over costs and strategies for covering the uninsured.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Drug manufacturers will offer some billion in prescription discounts for Medicare recipients under a deal unveiled on Saturday, which could boost President Barack Obama as he pushes to overhaul the .5 trillion U.S. healthcare system.