Tag: pharmaceuticals

News (19)

July 24, 2012 9:15 am

Ban on pharma meals for physicians overturned (American Medical News)

In May, the Massachusetts Medical Society adopted policy supporting a change in the state’s gift ban so long as the modification conformed to guidelines from the ACCME and the American Medical Association. The AMA Code of Medical Ethics says it is OK for physicians to accept gifts worth $100 or less from industry so long as they benefit patients.

July 18, 2012 10:14 am

M.D. Anderson drug trial raises ethical concerns (Houston Chronicle)

M.D. Anderson’s oversight of clinical trials of the drug AV-203 would violate ethics rules the institution created a decade ago after it failed to tell patients about the financial stake of its then-president, Dr. John Mendelsohn, in his drug Erbitux.  “To me, this is a conflict of interest,” Dr. Leonard Zwelling, an M.D. Anderson professor who helped rewrite the ethics rules, said of the Aveo trial. “There is a system that got bypassed here.”

July 17, 2012 4:01 pm

The Ethics of Sports 'We Need an Open Market for Doping' (Spiegel Online)

It is commonly accepting that doping in sports should be strictly prohibited. But Oxford bio-ethicist Julian Savulescu disagrees. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE on the eve of the London Olympics, he explains why bans are unrealistic and demands an open market for doping.

July 10, 2012 4:28 pm

FDA unveils safety measures for opioid painkillers (Fox News)

Drugmakers that market powerful painkiller medications will be required to fund training programs to help U.S. doctors and other health professionals safely prescribe the drugs, which are blamed for thousands of fatal overdoses each year.  The safety plan released by the Food and Drug Administration on Monday is designed to reduce misuse and abuse of long-acting opioid pain relievers, which include forms of morphine, methadone and oxycodone. The agency’s plan mainly involves educating doctors and patients about appropriate use of the drugs.

July 2, 2012 3:52 pm

Fighting prescription drug abuse, while treating pain, is a health care crisis (Oregon Live)

The abuse, misuse and diversion of prescription drugs is a public health crisis. This is particularly apparent to those of us working in the emergency department, which is the largest ambulatory source of opioid medications. We all too frequently see individuals with untreated addiction issues, with life-threatening overdoses, and trying to obtain opioid medications for recreational use or to sell for profit.

June 6, 2012 12:04 pm

Cancer Doctors Say Some, Not All, Drug Shortages Have Eased (Wall Street Journal)

Doctors who treat cancer say a shortage of oncology drugs has eased, though shortages persist of some chemotherapy drugs that form the backbone of treatment for breast, colon, lung and some other cancers. Hospitals have been struggling with shortages of mostly older, generic drugs for cancer and other ailments for about two years.

May 29, 2012 1:01 pm

The Antidepressant Wars: A Fierce Debate that Ignores Patients (Boston Review)

My case is individual, but it is not unique. I have known many depression patients, and their stories also tell of long, hard slogs through antidepressants that do not always work. They are not the lazy, over-consuming, morally hazardous patients of some health policy literatures, but many are afraid to speak publicly about their medications for fear of disclosing their diagnoses and of damaging relationships and careers. I am sure there are people taking antidepressants for the wrong reasons, and perhaps the antidepressant wars will encourage them to re-evaluate. The debate must make room for the rest of us, though—the ones for whom effectiveness and ineffectiveness have been the research questions of our lives.

May 17, 2012 10:03 am

Compassionate use gives lifeline to needy patients (SF Gate)

A Florida mother made an impassioned video plea. Dying of breast cancer, she asked South San Francisco drugmaker Genentech and federal regulators to grant her compassionate use of a new drug that is not expected to be approved until next month.

May 14, 2012 10:06 am

IOM calls for more thorough safety monitoring of drugs (American Medical News)

To track a medicine’s safety, the FDA should create a comprehensive benefit and risk assessment and management plan that is readily accessible to the public and easy to understand, according to the report, issued May 1. Such a document would give physicians and others greater access to information about drugs on the market than they had in the past, said Eric M. Meslin, PhD, a member of the 12-person IOM committee that wrote the report.

May 8, 2012 10:23 am

One in eight teens misuses prescription painkillers (Chicago Tribune)

Both medical and recreational use of such opioid drugs has increased across the United States over the past couple of decades, as have deaths due to painkiller overdoses. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 14,800 Americans died of an opioid overdose in 2008 — three times the number of overdose deaths 20 years earlier.