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An early-stage clinical trial yielded promising results for a chlamydia vaccine, researchers reported Thursday in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. There is currently no vaccine to protect against the sexually transmitted infection, which is the most common bacterial STI in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2022, there were more than 1.6 million cases. (Syal, 4/11)

A growing number of drugs are in short supply around the U.S., according to pharmacists. In the first three months of the year, there were 323 active medication shortages, surpassing the previous high of 320 shortages in 2014, according to a survey by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) and Utah Drug Information Service. It also amounts to the most shortages since the trade group started keeping track in 2001. (Gibson, 4/11)

The European Parliament has voted overwhelmingly to adopt legislation that is supposed to transform the way medicines are brought to market and accessed across much of Europe. But the effort — which must still be approved by the European Council — drew mixed reactions from the pharmaceutical industry and consumer groups. (Silverman, 4/11)

Denise Lee grew up in Detroit in the mid-1970s and went to an all-girls Catholic high school. She smoked her first cigarette at age 14 at school, where cigarettes were a popular way of trying to lose weight. Instead, her nicotine addiction lasted four decades until she quit in her mid-50s. "At some point it got up as high as 2.5 packs a day," Lee, 62, recalls. (Noguchi, 4/12)

More than 20 lawsuits brought by families who say their children were harmed by baby food products made by Gerber, Beech-Nut, Campbell Soup Co and several other companies that were tainted with heavy metals will be centralized in San Francisco federal court, a federal judicial panel said Thursday. (Jones, 4/11)