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antibiotics
In a hard-hitting op-ed in today s NY Times, food writer Ruth Reichl takes the FDA to task for not taking strong action to limit or ban the use of antibiotics in food animals.
We at ACSH have written frequently about the misguided change in mindset by the FDA two decades ago that brought most antibiotic research to a dead stop.
No one has been deeper in the FDA trenches than ACSH advisor and infectious disease expert Dr. David Shlaes. He has been blogging, advising, lobbying, begging, and doing just about everything short of pulling his hair out to convince the infectious disease division of the FDA to reverse the disastrous changes in clinical trial policy that caused almost all drug companies to abandon research in this area.
A new study published online in the journal Annals of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology raises some interesting questions about whether very young children who receive antibiotics develop asthma more frequently than those who do not.
Get the latest news on the costly Hepatitis C drug, why C-sections have skyrocketed in numbers, and the real reason behind the lack of research on antibiotic research
While it s good to see that The New York Times is taking note of the crisis of antibiotic resistance, it is unfortunate that they could not be
The emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, in particular a strain of Staphlococcus aureus (SA ) resistant to methicillin (MRSA) (a member of the fluoroquinolone class of drugs) has concerned physicians and caused hospitals to review and revamp their sanitation procedures.
The very good news is that antibiotic research by drug companies is slowly starting up again after a long sabbatical. But almost without exception, the complete story of how we got here is not told.
A the end of every year there is a tally of the number of new drugs that were approved by the FDA during that year. This was recently covered quite thoroughly in a Forbes.com op-ed by Bernard Munos entitled The FDA Approvals of 2012: A Watershed? Munos points out that the number of approvals in 2013 (27) was down sharply from the 37 new drugs that were approved in 2012. While this may be an important number for the pharmaceutical industry, in terms of public health these numbers don t mean all that much.
Every now and then our government gets something right. This is one of those times.
What is unfortunate is that it should have never come to this in the first place. Because 20 years ago our government got it really wrong, for which we are now paying a steep price.
In today s you must be kidding news, the FDA, prodded by the Obama administration, told Congress that they were very concerned about the threat of bacteria that are immune to drugs.
We at ACSH have written frequently about an unmitigated disaster that has already begun the progressive failure of available antibiotics to tackle previously treatable bacterial infections.
Yesterday the CDC issued a report about this, and it was more of the same.