The federal Food and Drug Administration has unveiled a plan to track high-risk medical devices.
A Wall Street Journal report on the policy says that it would require the high-risk devices to carry identification numbers. Jeffrey Shuren, director of the FDA’s medical-device center, described the plan as “a major game-changer” and said the agency plans to ramp up efforts to identify malfunctioning medical devices early.
For a long time, public safety advocates ...
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Members of a U.S. Food and Drug Administration panel that recently discussed metal-on-metal artificial hip implants said they wouldn’t recommend that patients get them, although the FDA as a whole has so far stopped short of an official ruling on the devices.
Still, the FDA Website has a section advising orthopedic surgeons who are performing metal-on-metal hip implantation surgery. And the FDA’s recommendations clearly reflect concerns about the devices shedding toxic ...
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The $3 billion fine recently leveled against GlaxoSmithKline is the largest settlement ever involving a pharmaceutical company. But in light of the enormous profits that the British pharmaceutical giant brings in, some critics wonder whether even that will be enough to dissuade companies from engaging in dangerous fraud.
GlaxoSmithKline pleaded guilty to marketing drugs for unapproved uses, according to a New York Times report. Among the charges is that the company ...
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A higher price as a selling point may seem counterintuitive. Why would somebody purchase a product specifically because it costs more, particularly if safer alternatives are available?
But according to an article by the National Research Center for Women and Families, that’s precisely what happened with Bayer’s Yasmin line of birth control pills, which includes read more.... --> continue reading...
In a piece for the Wall Street Journal, writer Katherine Sharpe argues that antidepressants are overprescribed in the United States, and discusses the challenges that face a growing segment of population – young people who have no conception of who they are when they aren’t on antidepressants.
She cites figures from the National Center for Health Statistics, which state that 5 percent of American 12- to 19-year-olds use antidepressants, and another ...
continue reading...The American Cancer Society says there are about 3,000 new cases of mesothelioma each year in the United States, which makes it pretty rare.
Mesothelioma is a form of cancer caused primarily by exposure to asbestos, which affects the protective lining that covers many of the internal organs of the body called the mesothelium.
The rate of mesothelioma in the United States increased from the 1970s to the early 1990s and since then has slowly decreased, which likely resulted from a change ...
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