Avastin Vote: An FDA appeals panel made up of outside experts voted 6-0 to recommend the agency remove Avastin’s approval for breast cancer, the WSJ reports . Panel members said studies showed the Roche drug provided no meaningful benefit to patients while raising the risk for serious side effects. The ultimate decision on the drug’s breast-cancer indication rests with FDA head Margaret Hamburg. Regardless of what she decides, the drug will remain on the market since it’s approved for other cancers. Focus on Fenugreek: The search for the culprit in the E. coli outbreak in Germany and, most recently, France, has focused on fenugreek seeds from Egypt, the New York Times reports . Sprouts from contaminated seeds are “implicated in both outbreaks,” according to a European Food Safety Authority report, but it is still not clear that they

are the actual source of the illness. Health Law Upheld: An appeals-court panel of three judges, two of whom were appointed by Republican presidents, ruled the health-care overhaul law is constitutional, the WSJ reports . Other appeals are pending. The plaintiff in this case, Michigan-based Thomas More Law Center, plans to appeal to the Supreme Court. Widening Spread: Investors are demanding increasingly greater relative yields from lower-rated hospital bonds, Bloomberg News reports . Uncertainty over the health-care overhaul law’s implications and concerns over Medicaid cuts helped push up the spread between BBB rated 10-year hospital bonds and top-rated general-obligation debt to 2.74 percentage points in May, BN says. That spread is the widest since Oct. 2009, BN says. Image: iStockphoto

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A.M. Vitals: FDA Panel Recommends Pulling Avastin’s Breast-Cancer Approval