WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Food and Drug Administration panel of outside experts reopened one of the biggest drug controversies in recent years on Wednesday at a meeting where they will decide whether to recommend lifting marketing restrictions on GlaxoSmithKline Plc's Avandia diabetes drug.

The two-day FDA advisory committee meeting is not expected to bring about a major boost in sales for the onetime multibillion dollar product. But its findings may help revive the credibility of the British drugmaker's original research and shed light on the current U.S. regulatory approach to the health risks posed by new medicines.

Avandia was once the world's best-selling treatment for type 2 diabetes, with annual sales of $3.2 billion. Its use was heavily restricted in 2010 because of the possibility of increased risk of heart attack and stroke. It was withdrawn from the market in Europe in 2010, and only 3,000 people in the United States take it today.

Glaxo has said it has no plans to promote Avandia again, even if the FDA panel recommends lifting restrictions on sales of the drug, whose generic name is rosiglitazone.

The advisory panel session focused on a debate over the value of a Duke University "readjudication" of Glaxo's Record safety study that forms the basis for the expert panel's deliberations over the next two days.

FDA staff said in briefing documents this week that the Duke analysis backed Glaxo's safety findings for Avandia but also found that scores of smaller trials raised questions over whether the pill increases heart risks.

Dr. Thomas Marciniak, medical team leader of FDA's Division of Cardiovascular and Renal Products, warned panelists that the readjudication by the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI) cannot be considered independent. The effort was financed by and conducted in collaboration with the drugmaker, which has also paid thousands of dollars in consulting fees to Duke's lead investigator, he said.

"They got it right for what they were allowed to say," said Marciniak. Some Record documents were redacted, he said, and original records of potential adverse events were deleted.

"The readjudication was limited because it relies largely on the original database and source documents in collaboration with GSK," he added.

He offered to treat Glaxo Chief Executive Officer Andrew Witty and five of the CEO's colleagues to dinner at an expensive London restaurant if his views prove wrong.

Marciniak said it would have been better for FDA to handle all the data on Avandia with company authorization, pointing to concerns that the regulatory agency has less data on Avandia than the Duke researchers. That prompted panel members to express concern about how much proprietary data Glaxo has agreed to share with the agency.

NO AVANDIA PROMOTION

Researchers for Glaxo and DCRI defended Duke's reexamination of the Record study as comprehensive and independent and said that it showed no statistically important risk for heart-related deaths from the use of Avandia. Some FDA staff members also described the study as well planned and well conducted.

"There is no convincing evidence for systemic, systematic or intentional manipulation of efficacy or safety outcomes in Record," said Dr. Preston Dunnmon, an FDA official who reviewed the Record study, which spanned 4,400 patients across 25 countries, most of them European.

But members of the panel still questioned whether the reevaluation of Record offered an adequate assessment of the drug's safety profile.

"I'm not aware of any evidence definitively establishing cv (cardiovascular) safety," said Dr. Sanjay Kaul of Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in California.

"I believe that based on the data that we have been provided, that we have identified all of the events that were reported," replied the Duke institute's associate director, Dr. Kenneth Mahaffey.

But Mahaffey acknowledged a potential bias in the underlying data because of the original study's open-label style and said the Duke team did not systematically investigate the information it received from Glaxo to ensure it was complete: "We just didn't have the ability to do that."

The panel's patient representative, Rebecca Killion of Washington, D.C., asked FDA officials whether they had received assurances from Glaxo that the information the company provided to Duke researchers had not been altered.

"Do we have evidence that there has been willful redaction and withholding of information? That's a very good question," replied Dr. Mary Parks, director of FDA's division of metabolism and endocrinology products.

But FDA officials pointed out that the data remains the property of Glaxo and is not subject to outside scrutiny. A Glaxo official later told the meeting that the company provided all the data it had to Duke.

Morningstar analyst Damien Conover predicted only a slight chance that the meeting will prompt the FDA to ease Avandia sales restrictions significantly.

"But if they do, that could signal that the FDA is a little more willing to accept more side effects than it has in the past," Conover said.

Glaxo has settled lawsuits filed by tens of thousands of U.S. patients who had taken Avandia and claimed the company failed to inform them about risks. Several thousand other cases remain pending. The company last July agreed to pay $3 billion to settle allegations that it failed to provide the FDA with safety data on Avandia and marketed other drugs improperly.

European regulators required the Record safety trial over concerns that drugs in Avandia's class - called thiazolidinediones, or TZDs - may increase the risk of heart failure.

The FDA clamped down on Avandia's use in September 2010 after an FDA advisory panel voted that the Record data raised significant concerns of a greater risk of heart attack and stroke than other treatments, including Takeda Pharmaceutical Co's Actos, another TZD.

Although the FDA allowed Avandia to remain on the U.S. market, it commissioned Duke to analyze results of the Record trial to better assess the drug's safety and to examine criticisms over trial design and how the data was handled.

In a briefing document released ahead of the two-day meeting, the FDA said the study's methods and analyses passed muster with the Duke group and that it appeared to agree that Avandia was not associated in the Record trial with increased risk of heart attacks and stroke.

Avandia sales had been on a downhill slide since 2007, when Dr. Steven Nissen, head of cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic, said a pooled analysis of 42 studies showed Avandia increased the risk of a heart attack by 43 percent. Sales of Avandia, which was approved in 1999, plunged after the negative publicity.

The FDA now requires heart-safety data before approving new diabetes drugs.

(Additional reporting by Ransdell Pierson in New York; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Phil Berlowitz)

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's annual consumer inflation slowed in May while growth in bank lending fell below expectations, data showed on Sunday, piling up more evidence that the world's second-largest economy could slow further in the current quarter.

The National Bureau of Statistics said China's consumer inflation slowed to 2.1 percent, the lowest in three months, while producer prices fell 2.9 percent from a year earlier, the lowest since September.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected annual consumer inflation of 2.5 percent and factory-gate prices to fall 2.5 percent in May.

"The inflation data showed China's economic growth continued to slow down. Q2 growth is probably even slower than Q1. In particular, the PPI data showed very weak demand," said Jianguang Shen, chief China economist at Mizuho Securities Asia in Hong Kong.

Adding to the evidence of a slowdown was separate central bank data showing that Chinese banks lent 667.4 billion yuan ($109 billion) in new local currency loans in May, missing market expectations of 850 billion yuan and lower than April's 792.9 billion yuan.

The broad M2 money supply rose 15.8 percent in May from a year earlier, slightly below a median forecast of 15.9 percent in a Reuters poll, while China's total social financing aggregate, a broad measure of liquidity in the economy, was 1.19 trillion yuan in May versus 1.75 trillion yuan in April.

The subdued inflation will enable China to keep an easy monetary stance and some see the possibility that the People's Bank of China could cut rates later this year to reduce financing costs for struggling Chinese firms, provided that housing inflation does not flare up.

"China has rising room and the possibility to cut interest rates in the second half of this year," Shen added.

"The financing cost for companies is very high now and the central bank should further pursue interest rate liberalization. China's fiscal policy in the second half needs to protect consumption growth and support investment."

China's economy grew at its slowest pace for 13 years in 2012, and it has so far surprised on the downside, bringing warnings from some economists that the country would even miss its annual growth target of 7.5 percent.

On Saturday, data showed that China's exports posted their lowest growth rate in almost a year in May while imports unexpectedly fell, underlining concerns that growth in the world's second-largest economy could slow anew in the second quarter.

Government economists from top think-tanks in Beijing told Reuters this week that the new leadership of President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang will tolerate quarterly growth to slip as far as 7 percent before hitting the stimulus button.

Li had struck a more upbeat note on Saturday, being quoted by state television as saying that China's economy was generally stable, growth was within a "relatively high and reasonable range" and the employment situation was stable.

Month-on-month, consumer prices fell 0.6 percent in May versus a forecast for a drop of 0.2 percent.

Over 80 percent of the monthly fall in the CPI was accounted for by a fall in vegetable prices as supply increased due to warm weather. Vegetable prices fell 13.8 percent in May from April, dragging down the month-on-month headline CPI by 0.5 percentage points.

(Reporting by Langi Chiang and Jonathan Standing; Editing by Ron Popeski)

The book, which once belonged to the critic and author Malcolm Cowley, will go under the hammer along with a group of Fitzgerald's letters and an unpublished poem in the June 11 books and manuscript sale in New York.

"The book is now almost universally recognized as standing among the great achievements of 20th-century American literature with the tragic story of Jay Gatsby, and more broadly, the American dream, resonating with readers for generations," Sotheby's said in a statement announcing the sale.

Fitzgerald wrote the Jazz Age drama while living in France. Although it was popular when it was published in 1925, it wasn't until Fitzgerald's death in 1940 that it was hailed as the great American novel.

News of the sale comes just weeks after the opening of director Baz Luhrmann's film "The Great Gatsby," starring Leonardo DiCaprio as the hero of the tragic love story.

(Reporting by Patricia Reaney; Editing by Jan Paschal)

Parker, 33, married his fiancee Alexandra Lenas in a ceremony at an inn in the costal retreat of Big Sur with 300 family and friends in attendance, his representative Matthew Hiltzik said in a statement.

Their daughter, Winter, who was born this year, was part of the ceremony.

Parker's fortune is estimated at $2 billion at Forbes.com.

In 2004, Parker joined Facebook where he became its first president. He left the company in 2005 and is now a managing partner at venture capital firm Founders Fund.

Actor Justin Timberlake played Parker as a hard-partying ladies man in a 2010 movie, "The Social Network," about the creation of Facebook by Mark Zuckerberg, who was then a student at Harvard University. After the film came out, Parker dismissed the portrayal as fictional.

Aside from his time at Facebook, Parker is known for co-founding Napster in 1999 when he was 19 years-old.

Napster flummoxed music executives by allowing free peer-to-peer sharing of songs online. It was shut down by court order in 2001 over copyright infringement claims.

Parker is still involved in the online music industry, and was a backer of music subscription service Spotify.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Christopher Wilson)

[More from BGR: ]

This article was

But like all sources of energy, wind power comes at a cost one that's too often borne by eagles, hawks, falcons, owls and other birds.

Wind turbines kill more than 573,000 birds each year in the United States, according to , including federally protected species like bald eagles and golden eagles. []

Even bats are falling victim to wind-turbine blades: The Pennsylvania Game Commission estimates that more than 10,000 bats are killed in the state each year by wind turbines, thereports.

Of course, birds die from other causes, too: Structures like glass-walled office buildings and utility towers, vehicular collisions and carnivorous animals (including domestic cats) kill far more birds each year than wind turbines do.

Though it can appear as though theyre turning at a slow, almost relaxed pace, wind-turbine blades actually move very rapidly: The outer tips of some turbines' blades can reach speeds of 179 mph (288 kilometers per hour) and can easily slice off an eagle's wing.

And when hawks, falcons and eagles are flying, they're usually looking down at the ground for prey, not glancing up to watch for a knifelike blade whipping down on them from above.

"There is nothing in the evolution of eagles that would come near to describing a wind turbine," Grainger Hunt, a raptor specialist with the Peregrine Fund, told the AP. "There has never been an opportunity to adapt to that sort of threat."

Compounding the problem is the design of some wind turbines: The lattice work found on older models makes an ideal perch for larger birds of prey, so they're attracted to the same spires that are also a death trap.

Wind-farm siting is another factor. Many wind farms, like the Altamont Pass Wind Farm in northern California, were constructed in the middle of important migratory routes and are surrounded by prime raptor habitat.

Altamont Pass has come under fire for being one of the deadliest wind farms in the world. One study found almost 10,000 birds die each year beneath the wind-turbine blades at Altamont, and most of them are federally protected raptors or are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Journal reports.

As the number of maimed and dead birds grows, several solutions have been proposed to stem the grisly mutilations of birds and bats occurring at wind farms. Siting wind turbines in areas with lower bird populations is one option.

And newer turbine designs, such as those without lattice frames and with vertical-axis rotors, can reduce the deadly impact that wind turbines have on bird populations worldwide.

It's working at Altamont: Modernizing older turbines and placing them away from certain corridors has reduced the death rate for some bird species by 50 percent, according to .

Follow Marc Lallanilla onand . Follow us ,& . Original article on .

This is the second time in less than 15 years that the town of Moore, a suburb of Oklahoma City, has been hit squarely by a major tornado. Thats mostly down to bad luckalthough Oklahoma City area might as well be the buckle of the tornado belt, as Alexis Madrigal , the chances of actually being hit by a major tornado even in this danger zone remain low. Though I doubt that will provide much comfort to the grieving residents of Moore as they dig out from yet another destructive twister.

But as unlikely as a major tornado remains, the hundreds of twisters that touch down in the U.S. still cause major damagesecond only to hurricanes, according to the reinsurer Munich Re. Few ordinary structures can withstand a direct hit from a tornado as strong as the one that passed through Moore yesterday, which now ranks as an EF5, with winds above 200 mph. Not much could have saved the homes and businesses destroyed by the Moore twister, but is there a way to ensure that the lives of people in tornado country can be protected from extreme weather?

The answer is yeswith the right policy and the right incentives. But first we have to understand how the risks from extreme weather are changingand for the most part, increasing. (Hat tip to Andrew Revkin of Dot Earth, whosetouched on much of this material.) As I wrote , theres no clear trend on the frequency or strength of tornadoes hitting the U.S. It had actually been a historically quiet 12 months for tornadoes until recently. And its not clear what, if any, impact warming temperatures are having on tornadoes.

(PHOTOS:)

But according to Peter Hoeppe, the head of the Geo Risks department at the Munich Reinsurance company, damages from tornadoes have been growing over the long terma trend thats been driven chiefly by the increase of people and property in vulnerable areas, like the tornado belt. More people in harms way mean more people to be harmed when a twister touches down. This is the major loss driver for both tornadoes and hurricanes, says Hoeppe.

The population of Oklahoma City increased from around 400,000 in 1980 to nearly 600,000 today, driven in part by the citys booming, fossil fuel-driven economy. In Moore, a major suburb of Oklahoma City, population hassince 1980, to 55,000 now. Thats a fairly dense for tornado country, which meant a lot of people and property were in the path of the twister on May 20. Just as the rapid growth of population along the coasts has made usto hurricanes and coastal flooding, more people in the tornado belt can multiply the damage done by those twisters

The best way to survive an EF4 or EF5 tornado is in an underground shelter, or in a. Cellars would be ideal, but as Megan Garber explains , the environment in Oklahoma is not:

The relative dearth of storm cellars in Oklahoma comes down, , to environmental factors. The soil in the state is composed largely of clay and thats particularly true in central Oklahoma, where Moore is located. (Soils in the Central Rolling Red Prairies, geologists at Oklahoma State , are dark and loamy with clayey to loamy subsoils developed on Permian shales, mudstones, sandstones and/or alluvial deposits under tall grasses.)

Building a private structure and full underground shelter that could withstand a major tornado is certainly possible, but as theof Austin College told me, it would be out of the reach of anyone who is not wealthy. Private safe rooms can be builtSimmons, who lives in tornado country north of Dallas, just put one in his own house for $4,000but its still likely to be out of the reach of a lot of people in Oklahoma.

The state of Oklahoma and the federal government have begun to use financial incentives to encourage more resilient construction in tornado zones. Oklahoma is instituting a lottery to provide people with a maximum rebate of $2,000 to go towards , using funds provided by the federal government. More than 10,000 above and below-groundhave been built so far using that money.

But that funding comes with trade offs. In a 2006 study Simmons co-authored with Daniel Sutter of the University of Texas-Pan American, Simmons found that a program for building safe rooms in permanent dwellings would cost $52 million for every life saved. That exceeds estimate of the value of a statistical life based on market tradeoffs, as the authors wrote. (This is where economists sound horrible, Simmons notes.) Those figures reflect just how rare tornado fatalities remain today, especially ones that occur to people living in permanent dwellings, which can usually weather the weaker but more common twisters. The chance of death from tornado if you live in a mobile home is 10 times greater, however, since they provide virtually no place to shelter in the event of a twister. Simmons estimates that the cost of saving a life by building a safe rooms for mobile homeswhich would most likely take the form of a collective shelter for an entire trailer parkis a comparatively economical $4.8 million. There may be some good arguments made for some form of public assistance to build community shelters in trailer parks, says Simmons.

Another place where shelters and safe rooms are important is in . Many of the children killed by the Moore tornado were huddling in the Plaza Towers Elementary School, which . On Tuesday Albert Ashwood, the top emergency management official for Oklahoma, told reporters that neither Plaza Towers nor another elementary school in the storms path, Briarwood, had safe rooms or basements for students and teachers to take refuge in.Although the state of Oklahoma mandated after the 1999 tornado that all new schools would need to have a safe room, Plaza Towers was built in 1966. We cant say for sure whether shelters and safe rooms would have saved the students who died at Plaza Towersinitial reports suggested that the children but it should be clear now that public spaces like schools or churches or even highway rest stops can andwhere crowds could ride out even the strongest twisters.

The truth is that theres only so much that can be done to protect vulnerable populations from tornadoes as powerful and as wide as one that tore through Moore. If the death toll remains at 24, the town and Oklahoma may well count itself lucky, as physically devastating as this twister was. Still, we can do more to protect ourselves from nature if we take the initiative. We will rebuild and we will regain our strength, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallinafter surveying the carnage in Moore today. The question is whether we can and will rebuild even better.

Although the one-day conference was a response to gun violence, its agenda is much broader and includes discussion of insurance coverage for mental health care and substance abuse, recognizing the signs of mental illness in young people and improved access to services for veterans. The overall goal is reducing the stigma of mental health problems and encouraging those who are struggling to get help.

Obama plans to deliver opening remarks in the East Room and Vice President Joe Biden, the president's point man on gun violence, is scheduled to close it from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Around 150 invited attendees include mental health advocates and patients, educators, health care providers, faith leaders, lawmakers and local government officials from across the country.

Cooper and Close bring their advocacy and a celebrity buzz to the event.

Cooper has been promoting mental health awareness since his Oscar-nominated leading role as a man with bipolar disorder in last year's "Silver Linings Playbook," and plans to help Biden and Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki close the conference.

Close said Monday that her experience is "a family affair." Her sister, Jessie, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 51 and Jessie's son, Calen, was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder at 19. In 2009, Close's family battles led her to help start a non-profit called Bring Change 2 Mind, which produces public service announcements to fight the stigma and discrimination associated with mental illness. She is listed on a panel discussion on how to address negative attitudes about mental illness.

"What's important is social inclusion. There's a lot of stigma," Close said in an interview Monday morning with MSNBC from the White House briefing room. She said her nephew feels his brain is healing and that he's "living a full and wonderful life." Close said her sister is doing well, "but what it would have meant to her if she had early diagnosis."

"We need people living with mental illness with the courage to say this is what I am living with. I can talk about this," Close said.

The conference comes after Obama's defeat on gun control legislation. Unable to get Congress to approve background checks, an assault weapons ban and other limits on firearms, the president has vowed to do what he can through executive action.

Among 23 executive orders Obama signed in response to the shooting at Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary School that killed 26 was a directive that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Education Secretary Arne Duncan launch a national dialogue on mental health. The conference is part of that, with Sebelius hosting the panel on addressing negative attitudes and Duncan moderating a session on successful mental health outreach efforts.

There's been little publicly revealed about the mental health of Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza, although it's been documented that other gunmen involved in mass shootings suffered from mental illness. Federal law bans certain mentally ill people from purchasing firearms, but the background check system is woefully incomplete and Obama is trying to get more mental health records included.

In announcing the conference, the White House stressed that the vast majority of people with mental health conditions are not violent and are more likely to be victims than perpetrators of crimes. But the need to improve the country's mental health care system is something all sides of the gun debate have advocated, including the National Rifle Association.

"That is something substantive that Congress and the president could do right now that would actually help prevent future tragedies, unlike the gun control proposals that the president unsuccessfully tried to push through Congress," said NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam

The White House said Obama plans to announce that the Department of Veterans Affairs will conduct mental health summits nationwide to increase awareness of VA programs and link veterans and their families with community resources to support their needs. The conference also plans to tout improvements in mental health coverage under Obama's health care law, including a ban beginning next year against denying coverage to those who are mentally ill.

The White House also plans to focus on commitments being made in the private sector to increase understanding and awareness, including a campaign by the National Association of Broadcasters through television and radio ads and social media. Several organizations that work with young people also are planning to make new commitments, including high school principals holding mental health assemblies, to YMCA instructing staff and camp counselors to recognize the signs of mental health issues in kids, to religious leaders launching conversations on the issue.

___

Follow Nedra Pickler on Twitter at https://twitter.com/nedrapickler

The latest unlikely hero is Chris Dickerson, who hit a three-run homer with two outs in the ninth inning to carry the Orioles past the Detroit Tigers 7-5 Friday night.

Detroit closer Jose Valverde (0-1) entered in the ninth with a 5-3 lead after starter Max Scherzer retired the final 16 batters he faced.

Nick Markakis led off with a homer on a 0-2 pitch before Adam Jones singled and took third on a single by Chris Davis. Valverde (0-1) then retired Matt Wieters and J.J. Hardy on popups before Dickerson hit a 2-1 pitch into the bleachers in right-center, much to the delight of the sellout crowd of 46,249.

Dickerson was making his first start since May 23 following a bout with a sore wrist. Batting eighth in the lineup, he was 0 for 3 with two strikeouts before connecting.

"It's an amazing feeling, just to contribute in such a big situation," Dickerson said. "This team just claws back every single time. I'm just so happy I could cap it off for them."

He never before hit a game-ending home run at any level.

"I knew right away," Dickerson said. "It was awesome. That's the type of feeling you just want to bottle up and take home forever. First walk-off at any level. Just an incredible feeling, an incredible moment."

Jones, Davis and Manny Machado have provided many big hits for the Orioles this season, but guys such as Nate McLouth, Steve Pearce and Dickerson have done their part, too.

"That says a lot about our ballclub, up and down the lineup," Markakis said. "Anybody can hurt you. I think that's a positive thing we've got going for us right now."

Manager Buck Showalter said, "It's not like one guy's got to carry the load."

Darren O'Day (3-0) got the final out in the ninth for the Orioles, who have won eight of 11.

Miguel Cabrera and Avisail Garcia both homered and drove in two runs for the Tigers, who have lost four straight.

This one hurt more than most.

"We obviously let one get away," manager Jim Leyland said. "Scherzer got us where we wanted to be and then we just didn't close it out. Scherzer was spent and that was going to be his last inning. His pitch count was getting up there pretty good. It was no brainer to bring in Valverde."

After yielding a third-inning home run to Jones, Scherzer didn't allow another runner to reach and was poised to become the first Detroit pitcher to start a season 8-0 since Jeremy Bonderman in 2007.

The right-hander struck out 10 and walked two, but he threw a season-high 119 pitches before being replaced by Valverde, who came to the mound with a 0.75 ERA.

He walked off with his first loss and a 3.55 ERA.

"I miss a couple of pitches," Valverde said. "They have some good hitters. Tomorrow is going to be a new day. I had a tough day. There's nothing I can do. I feel bad for Max because he threw a good game."

Orioles starter Miguel Gonzalez allowed a season-high five earned runs over six innings and allowed both Detroit homers.

The Tigers went up 2-0 in the first inning when Andy Dirks singled and Cabrera hit his 16th homer of the season. He's the first Detroit player to hit 12 homers in May since Willie Horton in 1968.

Baltimore got a run back in the second, getting singles from Jones and Davis before Wieters delivered a sacrifice fly. In the third, Markakis walked before Jones connected to give the Orioles a brief 3-2 lead.

A two-out RBI single by Garcia tied it in the fourth, and Detroit went up 4-3 in the fifth when Dirks and Cabrera singled ahead of a run-scoring grounder by Victor Martinez.

Garcia hit his second homer of the season for a 5-3 lead in the sixth.

NOTES: Cabrera went 2 for 5 with a walk and took over the AL lead in hits with 81. He began the game tied with Machado, who was held hitless. ... Orioles RHP Pedro Strop, who's been on the DL since May 25 with a lower back strain, is slated to throw a simulated game Saturday. ... Justin Verlander takes the mound for Detroit on Saturday. The Orioles will start Jason Hammel, who's 7-2 overall but 1-2 with a 6.38 ERA at home.

DUBLIN, Ohio (Reuters) - Former champion Justin Rose had a sense of deja vu after battling through tricky, gusting winds to end Saturday's third round at the Memorial Tournament three strokes off the pace.

Three years ago, the Englishman trailed by four shots going into the final round here at Muirfield Village Golf Club and went on to claim his first victory on the PGA Tour by firing a flawless six-under-par 66 in shifting breezes.

"When I won this thing a few years ago, I was chasing on Sunday," Rose told reporters after carding a one-under 71 to finish at five-under 211, three behind pacesetting American Matt Kuchar. "It was similar conditions, and I got it done.

"This course has a history of the wind swirling. But obviously when it's blowing this hard, it plays a little more consistent. That's the only good thing I can say about it.

"The rest is very tough. The greens are rolling perfectly, but quick, but there's no let-up. You have to hit good shot after good shot, which is how it should be."

Asked whether memories of his 2010 Memorial triumph would give him any possible advantage going into Sunday's final round, world number four Rose replied: "Well, it matters.

"Anytime you've done it, you can draw strength from that. I had a pretty specific game plan going into the final round in 2010, being four back. And I'm sure that will play again this week."

While five-times PGA Tour winner Kuchar took over at the top of the leaderboard by carding a 70 as winds gusted up to 32 mph, Rose was delighted to rebound from three bogeys around the turn with three birdies in his last seven holes.

"I struggled a little with my patience around the turn," the 32-year-old said after covering his back nine in two-under 34. "I felt like I was throwing the round away, and I had to give myself a talking-to to just relax, let the golf happen.

"And I managed to do that, made three birdies from that point coming in. That was a nice turning point for me. Obviously today was a great day.

"If I kept my position in the field, I gave myself a chance going into Sunday, which is what it's all about."

Rose, seeking his fifth victory on the PGA Tour, will tee off with Australian Matt Jones and American Bill Haas in the penultimate grouping on Sunday.

(Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes; Editing by Julian Linden)