Dan Berger, Ph.D. is a patent agent, who knows how nuances can result in billions of dollars going to one company rather than another. Even minor errors in drug patents can have enormous consequences. Given the stakes involved, we asked him to discuss what goes on inside pharmaceutical companies, and how their decisions ultimately affect consumers like you.
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Ellie is the "first ever digital UV sterilizing pod." Do you still need to wash and sterilize baby bottles? Yes, of course – drinking milk from unwashed containers would make anyone sick. But does everything that newborns place in their mouths need to undergo UV irradiation? Absolutely not.
An official representing retired Olympians told a gathering of anti-doping officials in London that to rid banned substances from future Olympics, microchips should be implanted in the athletes to constantly monitor for the presence of drugs. "We’re prepared to chip our dogs," he said, "so why aren’t we prepared to chip ourselves?”
For smokers who want to quit, nicotine vaping devices are safer alternatives to cigarettes. The use of E-cigarettes has recently been approved, with some common-sense restrictions, in New Zealand.
Starting a forest fire is a reckless, destructive, inconsiderate act, especially at this true natural treasure in the Pacific Northwest. And the negligence and complete lack of empathy exhibited by the teenagers who did it is chilling.
You probably haven't had an earache or ear infection since you were a child, but adults are not immune to infections in the middle ear, especially after they've been exposed to the flu.
The FDA is warning us that some natural remedies contain poison. Meanwhile, partisan rhetoric poisons the body politic. Discover the antidote to this partisan venom.
Anorexia nervosa prompts physical changes in the brain, and researchers report that even after "successful" treatment it does not revert back to its healthy state. Specifically, the organ continues to have an "elevated reward system" as compared to normal brains.
Did team sports for kids evolve from hunter-gatherers who needed to practice for war? A new paper suggests that is so.
"Methylene chloride is arguably the most dangerous of all the solvents sold at Home Depot," one of ASCH's experts says. Given the assessments, we believe this happens to be an instance where EPA concern is warranted.
Sara Gottfried "re-gifts" the standard advice about exercise, sleep and diet behind a new facade devoid of scientific evidence. The doctor and author claims that her regimen – which includes trips to a sauna and red wine – will reprogram our genes and help us live longer. Too bad that it's based on a premise that does not exist.
It's been an ongoing quest for researchers in the field of ornithology to try to zero in on specifically where a bird's navigation system resides in their heads. But now a team of European scientists believe that a particular protein in the retina governs this fascinating compass.
Single men, and men in committed relationships, have different behavioral responses to females at various stages of their fertility. A new study reveals that men may avoid temptation even more so when women are ovulating, when the threat is at its greatest.
Flight operations for the F-35 fighter jet were suspended until further notice due to multiple episodes of apparent oxygen deprivation to pilots. Aviation physiology is quite complex. Here's the impact of hypoxia, gravitational forces and altitude.
Babies are a little safer today as Hyland's homeopathic teething tablets have been recalled by their manufacturer, Standard Homeopathic Company. It's been a long road to get to this point, with pressure for the recall coming primarily from the FDA.
In an effort to combat patient non-compliance with medications, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first pill with an ingestible tracking sensor. Will it be used for good or evil, or something in between?
Commissioner Scott Gottlieb believes that his FDA should be in the business of getting smokers to transition away from cigarettes, to something less harmful like e-cigarettes or other products. That's similar to the policy taken by the UK's National Health Service, and it's precisely in line with ACSH's policy stance of harm reduction.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been grooming selected journalists to give favorable treatment to government findings, and even FDA ad campaigns, by inviting them to elite briefings that other journalists could not attend – or did not know even existed – as long as these special friends in journalism played by a strict set of FDA-friendly rules, as detailed in an exposé by Charles Seife in Scientific American, which confirmed what outsiders had long suspected.
The sheer number of baby products on the market can overwhelm any new parent. But the Food and Drug Administration is cracking down on one in particular: the sleep positioner. Officials consider it dangerous to the infant, as its use has been connected to 12 fatalities to date.
The FDA is going after the most egregious violators of common sense: those who are clearly targeting children. To name and shame the bad actors who are doing a great harm to legitimate smoking cessation efforts, we offer them up here. Take a look; it's truly shameful.
The FDA just released a list of 25 eating establishments in California, Texas and Oklahoma that received – and may have already served – tuna steaks that tested positive for hepatitis A. The agency is urging those who ate either raw or undercooked tuna from these restaurants within the last two weeks to receive a post-exposure vaccine.
New reports out of Australia contain some sobering news. The number of influenza cases this year is 2.5-times that of the same time period last year. Does this mean that the US is looking at a bad flu season? Probably yes, but there are many factors involved. Several experts explain.
Statistics is difficult, and choosing the proper tools becomes more challenging as experiments become more complex. That's why it's not uncommon for large genetics or epidemiological studies to have a biostatistician as a co-author. Perhaps more biomedical studies should follow suit.
While not formally approved by the FDA, the concept is simple: Replenish the good bacteria and control the disease-causing bacteria.
People trying to quit smoking won a major battle last week when the FDA announced it would delay implementation of regulations that would have deemed a number of e-cigarette products illegal. So why are some anti-nicotine advocates calling foul?
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