STATE

Grocery chains, union resume labor talks

Contract talks between three major supermarket chains and the union representing Southern California workers resumed Monday after a weeklong break, officials said.

"My understanding is that negotiations are under way," said Adena Tessler, spokeswoman for the three chains Supervalu Inc.'s Albertsons, Kroger Co.'s Ralphs and Safeway Inc.'s Vons and Pavilions.

The negotiations were being coordinated by a representative of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service under a media blackout on details.

The contract covering 65,000 workers at 785 stores from San Luis Obispo and Bakersfield south to San Diego expired March 5 but remains in place unless either side stops negotiating. A strike or lockout could follow 72 hours later.

Nicaraguan field workers to get sterility settlement

A Southern California chemical company has agreed to pay $300,000 to Nicaraguan field workers who filed a lawsuit claiming one of the firm's pesticides caused them to become sterile.

The agreement between Amvac Chemical Corp. and 13 plaintiffs still needs to be signed off by a judge. Individual amounts from the settlement ranged from $2,000 to $60,000, according to court documents filed last month.

The lawsuit also names Dow Chemical Co. and Dole Fruit Co. as defendants and is scheduled for trial next month in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Dole Fruit is a division of Dole Food Co. based in Thousand Oaks.

Amgen reports further findings of drug study

Amgen Inc., the Thousand Oaks-based biotechnology company that has been under a barrage of bad news from recent studies on some of its drugs, released the further results of one of those studies Monday.

The study looked at the use of anemia-fighting drug Aranesp to treat anemia in cancer patients not undergoing chemotherapy. Aranesp has U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for use in cancer patients whose anemia is caused by chemotherapy.

Amgen officials had mentioned preliminary study results in January, noting then that the drug did not show as much of a reduction in transfusions as hoped and more patients taking the anemia-fighting drug Aranesp had died during the study.

On Monday, Amgen reported that 48.5 percent of patients taking Aranesp died, compared with 46 percent of those taking placebos. When analyzed and adjusted for factors such as tumor type and tumor stage, the risk still existed, but was lower. There is no clear explanation for the increase in deaths, said one of the researchers in the study.

The company's stock rose 62 cents to $59.65 Monday.

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