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.
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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.
Speaking of which, a new unanticipated benefit of fizzy soft drinks seems to have been discovered. What could this be, you ask? Treating, non-surgically, a phytobezoar, an uncommon but potentially dangerous condition.
A phytobezoar occurs when undigested plant matter such as seeds or fibers gets trapped in the stomach or intestines, sometimes causing bowel blockage. And it turns out there's an odd, but tasty treatment for this: Coca-Coca.
The next time you go for your routine check-up, you may be asked a new question: How many minutes per week are you active or getting exercise?
If we weren t infuriated before reading Dr. Marc Siegel s latest column arguing against making the flu vaccine mandatory for health care workers, we certainly are now. (Dr. Siegel is an associate professor of medicine and medical director of Doctor Radio at NYU Langone Medical Center).
This flu season is turning out to be a whopper. In Boston, Mayor Thomas Menino on Wednesday declared a public health emergency after city residents came down with 700 confirmed cases 10 times more than all of last season.
Now that a full year has passed since the abortive attempt by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration s Commissioner, Dr. Margaret Hamburg, to make the morning-after pill available to anyone over-the-counter (OTC), what is the status of this plan?
H.I.V. positive patients who smoke lose more years to smoking than to the virus itself, a new Danish study suggests.
Approximately one in eight teenagers have had, at some time in their lives, persistent suicidal thoughts or ideation, and about a third of them had made an attempt at suicide, the first nationwide study found.
Although this year soda has received much criticism for its high sugar content and suspected adverse health effects, diet soda has been a target of flawed criticism as well. Last year, for instance, a flawed study tied the consumption of diet soda to diabetes. Unfortunately, the study authors neglected to control for the weight of the subjects. Once this factor was considered, the correlation disappeared.
You may remember the story we published in Dispatch on November 29, about protection from the pertussis vaccine fading over time. Well here is yet another reason to consider going out to get the booster as an adult. A whooping cough epidemic has broken out in Vermont and as of last week, 522 cases of pertussis have been reported across the state.
Yesterday we informed readers that although Olympic athletes tend to live longer than the general population, similar health benefits and longevity could be achieved by all of us through routine physical activity.
New recommendations from the American Cancer Society say that older current or former heavy smokers may want to talk to their physician about getting a yearly low-dose CT scan (also called spiral CT scans) of the chest to help detect lung cancer.
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