If you’re a teen in North Carolina, a new bill before the legislature may make it more difficult for you to get sexually transmitted disease testing and treatment, mental health counseling, pregnancy care or even substance abuse treatment. To receive any of those, a teen would need written, notarized parental consent. A parent could not simply give permission on the phone, via a note, or even by signing a consent form. No, the parent has to use a notary to give permission.…

Have you ever wondered what happens to drugs when a company finds them to lack promise or they prove to be dangerous in animal testing? One might expect that such compounds are shelved or destroyed. But in the case of GW501516 by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the compound has become the darling of competitive athletics.

According to Julie Deadorff’s article in the Chicago Tribune, one drug known as GW501516 failed because it caused cancers in lab animals. GSK began looking at the drug in 2005 as a treatment for raising HDL cholesterol to counter metabolic syndrome.…

In 1994, researchers at the University of Utah discovered that mutations in the genes BRCA1 and 2 correlated with higher rates of breast and ovarian cancer. The DNA portions in question show genetic predilection for cancer including breast, colon, uterine and ovarian. Utah patented the methods for using these sequences to test for breast cancer as well as patented a test kit, the isolated gene fragment, and cloned DNA (cDNA) of the sequence.  The University made an exclusive license deal with a private company, Myriad Genetics.…

Last week, an FDA advisory panel suggested that hydrocodone-based pain control medications be reclassified from Schedule III to Schedule II. The panel made the recommendation out of a concern that an increasing number of people are becoming addicted to painkillers.

The expressed worry is that the non-medical use of these prescription painkillers is becoming an “epidemic” to quote a frequently used term. Hydrocodone is currently a Schedule III substance, which means it has some potential for abuse. Such drugs must be prescribed by a physician who can send the order to a pharmacy orally, in writing, or by fax and it may be refilled up to 5 times within 6 months before a new prescription is required.…

Like most of the rest of the United States, we join in mourning with the families who lost a child during the Connecticut school shooting. And just a few days before that, we mourned the people killed in a mall shooting in Oregon. Such news is tragic and ironically both events occurred in the same week that the 7^th U.S. Court of Appeals struck down the state of Illinois’ ban on carrying concealed weapons. In the last month a Texas legislator filed a bill to reduce the number of hours of training required to get a concealed weapons permit from 10 to 4 and filed another bill that would allow school board members to carry guns at school board meetings.…