On Wednesday the European Commission approved the use of Avastin (bevacizumab) for treatment of advanced stage breast cancer. This decision, which follows from a recommendation of a European Union advisory panel, stands in marked contrast to the policies of the FDA.
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Perhaps responding to ACSH’s Director of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences Dr. Josh Bloom’s op-ed on the effect of the FDA’s overly-precautionary regulations on the pharmaceutical industry, the FDA is countering claims that it is not approving enough drugs. The agency published a statement arguing that the number of approvals for novel drugs, called new molecular entities (NMEs), has remained stable over the past decade.
Ten days after a devastating 9.0 earthquake and tsunami wreaked havoc on Japan, engineers worked around the clock to successfully restore power to the cooling pumps in reactors No. 5 and 6 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The partial restoration of electricity caused many to heave a sigh of relief as the threat of a nuclear meltdown became less and less likely.
Some West Virginia University researchers are frying up a skillet of fear for pre-menopausal women. Published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (JCEM), a new study alleges that the perfluorocarbons (PFCs) — referred to as “gender bending chemicals” by U.K.
KV pharmaceuticals recently won exclusive rights to the marketing of the pre-term labor prevention drug they’ve branded Makena. Priced at a whopping $1500 per shot, the therapy may cost up to $30,000 per pregnancy since it usually requires 20 weekly injections to prevent premature labor in patients who have a predisposition to or a history of going into premature labor.
The 22nd International Harm Reduction Conference is underway this week in Beirut, Lebanon, and an article published yesterday in The Lancet underscores the goals of the “Beirut Declaration on HIV and Injecting Drug Use: A Global Call for Action,” a new document released at the annual meeting.
According to a new report issued yesterday by the Partnership at Drugfree.org, a trend in substance abuse has been on the rise for the past three years among adolescents, following a decade of continuous declines in drug abuse. The number of teenagers who admitted to using marijuana within the past year increased from 32 percent in 2008 to 39 percent in 2010. During the same time period, teens who owned up to using the drug ecstasy climbed from 6 percent to 10 percent.
Though measles was officially declared “eradicated” in the United States in 2000, a number of cases are still imported from people visiting countries that cannot or do not vaccinate against the disease. The CDC reports that in the first few months of 2011 alone, seven cases of measles have been imported by U.S. infant travelers aged 6 and 23 months. From 2001 to 2010, that number was 47.
Recognized for her roles in such popular movies as Almost Famous and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, actress Kate Hudson is now better known around the mommy blogosphere for committing what is perceived to be the cardinal sin of pregnancy: imbibing a glass of wine.
The FDA is requiring drug makers of tumor necrosis factor (TNF) blockers to include an additional warning to their product label, cautioning of an increased risk for Hepatosplenic T-Cell Lymphoma (HSTCL), a type of blood cancer primarily reported in adolescents and young adults on TNF blockers.
Last night, ACSH s Dr. Gilbert Ross and Lana Spivak attended the American Cancer Society s one-year anniversary celebration of Choose You, co-hosted by executive producer and Academy Award-winning actress Hilary Swank (photo below). Dr. Ross and Ms. Spivak caught a preview of Swank s documentary, Choose You, a film that captures the stories of women empowered to choose a healthy lifestyle that includes diet and exercise to help prevent cancer, particularly breast cancer.
According to an organization called the Environmental Law Foundation (ELF), Dr Soda Co., a refreshment services provider in California, is in violation of the California Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, otherwise known as Proposition 65.
As spring turns to summer, ACSH anticipates better beach weather, plenty of summer movie sequels, and a new seasonal scare from the Environmental Working Group (EWG). Well, the EWG has yet to disappoint us, and this time, they’re warning us about sunscreens that may contain phototoxic and “dangerous endocrine disrupting” chemicals such as retinyl palmitate and oxybenzone, respectively.
Newer antipsychotic drugs currently approved to treat schizophrenia are being increasingly prescribed for off-label indications, according to a study published in Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety.
Environmental Health News reports on a new study published in the journal Reproductive Toxicology alleging that exposure to the phthalate DINP (di-isononylphthalate) causes developmental abnormalities in rats. To get their results, researchers had to inject the rodents with phthalate levels that were from 300 to 90,000 times greater than the exposure level found in humans.
Remember all those environmental activist reports that cropped up around Earth Day, alleging that prenatal exposure to certain pesticides will decrease your child’s IQ?
For the second time in as many days, we’d like to give a tip of the hat to ACSH advisor and Boston University School of Public Health Professor Dr. Michael Siegel for his essays on two different smoking-related policies. As we noted in yesterday’s Dispatch, Dr. Siegel’s perspective piece in the New England Journal of Medicine considered the problematic issue of mentholated cigarettes.
A new report which can be found here makes a devastating and overwhelming case that DDT spraying can save hundreds of thousands of lives every year and that UN and other NGO opposition to it is, as ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross puts it, “scientific fraud, as the authors document with copious evidence.” For any readers who may still have doubts about the issue, we suggest examining the evidence.
A business article published yesterday by The New York Times alerts us to a profound worry: FDA over-regulation of the medical device industry is driving companies in this business overseas to countries like China, India and Brazil. The approval process for new medical devices is not only more difficult and time-consuming in the U.S.
Previous studies have suggested that certain pain-relieving drugs, with the exception of aspirin and acetaminophen, may increase the risk of heart attack or death from a cardiovascular event. The drugs under suspicion are non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents (NSAIDs). Now a new study published in the American Journal of Medicine and led by Dr. Anthony A.
What are the top ten unfounded health scares this year?
New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley launched a new campaign this week to counter obesity in the city: smaller portions. Cut your portions. Cut your risk, one poster states, depicting an overweight diabetic man whose leg has been amputated. The campaign takes note of the correlation between increased serving sizes of food and increased obesity rates over the past several decades.
If we frequently promote useful smoking cessation aids such as smokeless tobacco and electronic cigarettes, it s because there are promising signs that these methods deliver a much higher quit rate than the methods that are conventionally promoted which have frustratingly low rates of success.
Urinary tract infections (UTI) are common enough, but a study just published in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that doctors too often prescribe antibiotics for bacteria in the urine when a patient s condition does not actually warrant it.
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