Pennsylvania will receive $90,000 of the $39 million that Daiichi Sankyo must pay in damages and penalties to 49 U.S. states, Washington, DC, and the federal government. The National Association of Medicaid Fraud Control and the federal government recently reached the settlement with Daiichi Sankyo after the New Jersey–based pharmaceutical giant was found to have violated federal law in promoting their drugs Azor, Welchol, Tribenzor, and Benicar.
A ...
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Daiichi Sankyo Co Ltd, a global pharmaceutical company, is being forced to pay $39 million to the United States government and state Medicaid programs to settle claims that the company paid doctors kickbacks to prescribe its drugs. Reuters reported that the fine was negotiated with the Department of Justice based on a whistleblower case by a former sales representative.
The lawsuit alleged that Daiichi paid doctors kickbacks from 2004 to 2011 to endorse the company’s various ...
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A recent post on Medline Plus discusses a study published in an October issue of Circulation. The study found that adequate blood pressure control was more likely with patients who made regular trips to the doctor and had medical insurance.
The researchers reviewed data from 1999 to 2012 on the blood pressure check ups of more than 37,000 Americans. They then controlled for factors like diabetes, body fat, and smoking. Even after accounting for these ...
continue reading...A recent New York Times piece looks at the effect of celiac disease on the brain. The story details what appeared to be sudden neurological or psychiatric symptoms, including seizures and hallucinations, that were eventually linked to patients’ celiac disease. The patients improved on a gluten-free diet after medications aimed at treating the neurologic symptoms failed.
Although celiac disease is notoriously difficult to diagnose, because of different symptoms among different patients, one study estimated that less than one ...
continue reading...Doctors commonly diagnose and treat patients showing signs of villous atrophy as if they had celiac disease, which is an aversion to gluten in the diet. Experts estimate that at least 3 million people in the United States are affected by celiac disease. The main treatment for celiac disease is a permanent gluten-free diet. However, many other conditions mimic the symptoms of celiac disease, which may commonly result in doctors misdiagnosing patients and prescribing a gluten-free diet, when ...
continue reading...Recent data presented at Digestive Disease Week 2014 revealed that less than half of the patients who show indications of celiac disease are being properly screened. An article in Gastroenterology & Endoscopy News notes that current celiac screening guidelines set by national organizations are not being followed routinely.
The current best practice is for celiac screening in patients with chronic gastrointestinal symptoms including postprandial abdominal pain, chronic diarrhea, or steatorrhea. The study, which was conducted at Washington University ...
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