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Drug

Prescription drugs, vaccines and their risks and benefits.

Drug

Have You Been Fooled by These Dirty Pharma Tricks?

A catalogue of drug industry tactics: inflating the Average Wholesale Price the government reimburses and playing the spread, pharmacy benefit managers pushing costly drugs such as Zyprexa while pledging to negotiate low prices, and pharma-orchestrated astroturf patient groups.

Drug

FDA: Gardasil approved to prevent anal cancer

The approval covers ages 9 to 26 and rests on a trial in men who reported sex with men, where Gardasil prevented HPV 16- and 18-related anal intraepithelial neoplasia in 78% of participants. The FDA assumed the same efficacy applies to women.

Dec 26, 2010

Drug

Majority of U.S. Family Physicians Prescribe Placebos

A survey of 1,000 American Academy of Family Physicians members, with 412 replies, found 56 percent had used a placebo in practice, 40 percent of them antibiotics and 11 percent inert substances. A separate PLoS ONE trial found openly labeled placebos beat no treatment for IBS.

Dec 25, 2010

Drug

Placebo treatment better than no treatment - study suggests

In a study of 80 irritable bowel syndrome patients, 59 percent of those given a pill openly described as having no active ingredient reported adequate symptom relief, against 35 percent left untreated. Kaptchuk suggests the benefit may lie in the performance of the medical ritual.

Dec 25, 2010

Drug

Alternative medicines vs. prescription drugs, which are more dangerous?

An Australian survey of paediatricians' reports found 39 cases of harm from alternative treatments between 2001 and 2003, including four deaths. The piece sets that against figures cited by Gary Null putting US deaths from adverse drug reactions at 106,000 a year.

Dec 24, 2010

Drug

Placebos work, at least for irritable bowel syndrome

Harvard researchers gave 80 irritable bowel syndrome patients either no treatment or a placebo pill labelled as a placebo. After three weeks, 59 percent on the openly labelled dummy pill reported adequate symptom relief, against 35 percent given nothing. The authors call the study small.

Dec 24, 2010

Drug

Gardasil gets FDA okay to fight anal cancer

The FDA expanded Gardasil's approved use to prevent anal cancer and precancerous lesions caused by HPV types 6, 11, 16 and 18. The American Cancer Society estimates 5,300 anal cancer diagnoses a year in the US, and HPV is associated with about 90% of cases.

Dec 24, 2010

Drug

Hormones: Still Pushed by Pharma; Still Dangerous

A poster by Dr. Joseph Ragaz at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium argues evidence that estrogen protects against breast cancer has been ignored. The author counters that the Women's Health Initiative was halted in 2002 after estrogen plus progestin was linked to 26% more breast cancer.

Dec 21, 2010

Drug

FDA: More data needed to approve AstraZeneca's Brilinta

The FDA declined to approve AstraZeneca's anti-clotting drug Brilinta, saying more data are needed, despite an advisory committee voting 7 to 1 to recommend approval. Reported advantages include rapid onset; drawbacks include shortness of breath and raised uric acid and creatinine.

Dec 19, 2010

Drug

Denufosol helps cystic fibrosis patients, so does vitamin D

In a phase III trial of 352 children with cystic fibrosis, 24 weeks of denufosol raised mean FEV1 by 0.048 L, about 2 percent above baseline, versus 0.003 L in controls. Researchers called the improvement small. Sinusitis, runny nose and headache were more common with the drug.

Dec 19, 2010

Drug

This Kills Twice as Many People as AIDS – Why are Doctors Ignoring it?

Mercola describes how drug companies paid doctors about $282 million last year, how sales reps use gifts and persuasion techniques, and how industry money reaches medical schools: 1,600 of Harvard's 8,900 faculty report ties that could bias teaching or research.

Dec 17, 2010

Drug

Avastin not safe to treat breast cancer says FDA

The FDA says Avastin should no longer treat breast cancer after four studies showed it neither extended survival nor slowed progression enough to outweigh harms such as severe hypertension, hemorrhage, perforations and heart failure. Its approvals for colon, kidney, brain and lung cancer stand.

Dec 16, 2010

Drug

Kids potentially confuse cough medicine with candy

FDA warns that Tessalon (benzonatate) capsules can look like candy and pose a serious risk to children under 10, causing cardiac arrest, coma or convulsions within 15 to 20 minutes of swallowing. Adverse event reports identified seven accidental ingestions; five children under 2 died.

Dec 16, 2010

Drug

Lazy eye could improve with acupuncture

A Chinese randomized trial assigned 88 children aged 7 to 12 with amblyopia to either two hours of daily patching or five weekly acupuncture sessions. At 15 weeks, acupuncture matched patching on best-corrected visual acuity and was statistically superior.

Dec 14, 2010

Drug

Zoledronic acid helps breast cancer patients

In 1,803 premenopausal women with endocrine-responsive early breast cancer, adding zoledronic acid cut disease-free survival events by 36 percent and death risk by 40 percent at 48 months, researchers told the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. Results held at 62 months.

Dec 13, 2010

Drug

Stem cells grown into organ tissue

Scientists report in Nature that they have grown human embryonic stem cells into three-dimensional tissue resembling intestine. Lead investigator James Wells says the protocol could serve research into intestinal disease, drug absorption and transplant tissue.

Dec 13, 2010

Drug

Women at risk of breast cancer fare better with early mammography

An 18-year review presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium found mammography caught 31 percent of stage 0 breast cancers against 2.5 percent found by hand, suggesting women in their 30s with known risk may gain from screening before the usual age of 40.

Dec 12, 2010

Drug

Cool Ads Aren't Helping Gardasil and Cervarix Vaccines

Research presented to the American Association for Cancer Research finds women declining the heavily advertised HPV vaccines, with a third not returning after the first of three shots. The piece questions the $359.25 price and cites 56 US girls' deaths reported to the CDC after vaccination.

Dec 10, 2010

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