A simple aspirin a day might help treat colon cancer in patients with a gene mutation that makes them more vulnerable to the disease, according to a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Andrew Chan of Massachusetts General Hospital and colleagues examined health questionnaires filled out by 964 colon cancer patients.
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The Food and Drug Administration has begun looking more closely at the way generic companies make extended-release drugs.
Recent safety concerns among Pradaxa users, their families and some doctors, has caused the Food and Drug Administration to issue a safety review on Friday stating that the risk of serious bleeding in Pradaxa patients is no higher than that among patients taking the older
The votes are in, and Californians have soundly rejected a measure that would have required labeling of genetically modified foods. With 98 percent of ballots tallied, Proposition 37 was trailing 47 to 53 percent, the Mercury News reports. ACSH was joined by a number of other groups, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science and newspaper editorial boards around the state, in condemning the measure as anti-scientific scaremongering.
Can getting a routine, screening mammography, as recommended by most medical organizations, including the American Cancer Society, beginning at age 50 and then every one or two years thereafter, actually do more harm than good? Perhaps.
As many as 2.3 million Americans have a condition called atrial fibrillation, the most common form of irregular heartbeat and a new study indicates the condition isn t as harmless as was once thought.
Ohio hospitals are going to bat for their patients, enacting strict measures to make sure all their workers get flu vaccines. The Columbus Dispatch details how hospitals in the Buckeye State are withholding raises, cutting off computer access and disciplining workers who refuse the shots. Cincinnati-based TriHealth, which operates three area hospitals, has even threatened to fire 150 employees who fail to get vaccinated by Dec.
As many as one in 88 children and one in 54 boys have a form of autism, according to the Centers for Disease Control. A new study attempts to pin the rise in autism to exposure to air pollution during pregnancy but it s a statistically invalid junk study, ACSH experts say.
Efforts by radical food activists to force labeling of genetically engineered foods rejected recently by California voters are also destined to fail in court, ACSH friend Dr. Henry Miller predicts in a letter appearing in Tuesday s Wall Street Journal.
What would you do if you had to decide whether to give a suffering patient morphine, but weren t sure whether there d be be enough left for the next patient, who might need the painkiller more? A nationwide drug shortage has forced health care workers into making these difficult decisions and some are even choosing to treat patients with less effective or expired drugs.
Based in Lyon, France, the International Agency for Research on Cancer is a widely respected body that produces assessments of carcinogens for use by regulators and researchers. But reputable scientists are now disassociating themselves from IARC and its research methods, a cancer epidemiologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine writes in Forbes.
As many as 1 in 14 surgery patients have post-discharge complications, most commonly involving infection of the surgical site, according to a new study published in Archives of Surgery.
Julie A. Sosa, M.D., of Yale University, and authors used a database to review records for 551,510 patients who had undergone inpatient surgery at 250 hospitals across the United States from 2005 to 2010. They found that one-sixth of all post-op patients sustained a post-discharge complication.
A federal appeals court in New York ruled this week that off-label drug promotion and marketing is free speech protected by the First Amendment. If the ruling stands, pharmaceutical companies will be able to legally market drugs for off-label conditions that they have studied but have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. This has the potential to change the face of marketing of prescription drugs in America, and may affect everything from patient care to TV advertising.
Get ready to hear more about electronic cigarettes except about how they can possibly help people quit smoking. Some e-cig manufacturers are gearing up for an expensive ad campaign, the New York Times reports. Scottsdale, Ariz.-based NJoy Inc. is spending $12 to $14 million to promote its NJoy King, while Lorillard s BlueCigs has hired actor Stephen Dorff to promote their product.
Are those little guys under threat? A new study claims that there has been a significant and continuous 32.2 percent decrease in sperm counts among French men in the last 17 years. Researchers led by Dr. Joelle Le Moal from the Institut de Veille Sanitaire published their findings in the journal Human Reproduction.
It is hardly surprising that The New York Times comes out with an anti-pharmaceutical screed on a regular basis. I usually just ignore them, but Thursday's article in Business Day was so slanted and amateurish that I couldn't pass up the opportunity to call them out.
The headline itself was the worst offender: "Brand-Name Drug Prices Rise Sharply, Report Says."
It may be hard to swallow after over two decades of increasing obesity rates, but for the first time, some American cities are beginning to see declines in these numbers. Although the declines are small, they are significant in showing that some of the policies and measures taken to address this unsolvable epidemic may actually be working.
According to Owen Paterson, environment secretary in Britain, the health scares surrounding genetically modified crops are complete nonsense. He even goes a step further in saying that Britain should be emphatically looking at their cultivation.
We had a little disagreement at our Dispatch meeting yesterday over whether Frito Lay is in- or out-of-bounds in its plans to sell a caffeinated version of Cracker Jacks (Cracker Jack d), and we asked you all to help settle it.
Here s what some of you had to say:
For people with high blood pressure, taking antihypertensive drugs can reduce their chances of heart attack and stroke but the medications pose a hidden risk for older patients. The drugs can cause dizziness and fainting that can sometimes lead to falls and hip fractures.
Josh Bloom, New Scientist Magazine 11/12/12
Beta blockers are busted what happens next?
There s been a big rise in diabetes cases, especially in the South and Appalachian states, a disheartening new study reports. It s not much consolation, but at least we can also report that there s a new treatment on the horizon for diabetic retinopathy, one of the most common causes of visual impairment among American adults, and can lead to blindness.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has just unveiled a new website, BeTobaccoFree.Gov, and as usual those in charge have chosen to keep on demonizing reduced risk tobacco products such as smokeless, and electronic cigarettes. E-Cigarettes may contain ingredients that are known to be toxic to humans. Because clinical studies about the safety of e-cigarettes have not been submitted to the U.S.
No matter how many scientists explain that there is no real evidence suggesting that pesticides are harmful when used appropriately, they continue to be the subject of a number of health scares the most recent linking pesticides to food allergies.
This past Friday, the Food and Drug Administration released two proposed rules designed to boost the safety of the nation's food supply a move coming after a series of high-profile recalls including cantaloupes in 2011 that killed 33 people, salmonella in peanut products, and a string of E. coli-related recalls involving beef.
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