NewsTrust - Pharmaceuticals - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

Executed man's mother urges ban on exports profiting from death penalty

Sun, 13 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Owen Bowcott - Feb. 13 () - Patches Rhode believes her son Brandon died in agony after anaesthetic supplied by UK wholesaler appeared ineffective.

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Don't swallow this pill

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Times of India - By Unni Karunakara - Jan. 21 (Opinion) - MSF's International President urges India not to cut off access to crucial low-cost medicines.

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Vaccine-autism researcher should be prosecuted

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

CNN - By Alex B. Berezow - Jan. 14 (Opinion) - Finally, after 13 years of needless controversy, the British Medical Journal determined that Andrew Wakefield's vaccine-autism link constituted an "elaborate fraud."

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File under 'can't win'

Tue, 04 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Ezra Klein - Jan. 04 (Opinion) - The Democrats promised that they'd be more responsible. They'd pay for their big projects. When health-care reform came around, they made good. They cut $500 billion from Medicare, handing conservatives a potent attack line. They introduced a tax on high-value health insurance plans, infuriating their union supporters. They didn't just pay for the bill: They overpaid for the bill, packing it with enough spending cuts and revenue increases to cut the deficit by more than $100 billion in the first 10 years, and then used the momentum of the bill to get liberals to sign off on cost controls, like an independent board designed to control Medicare's costs, that they'd have never countenanced in normal times.

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Bring on the health-care fight

Tue, 04 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Eugene Robinson - Jan. 04 (Opinion) - If the incoming Republican leadership in the House of Representatives is serious about trying to repeal health-care reform, there's only one appropriate Democratic response: "Make my day."

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FDA lax on conflicts of interest

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Boston Globe - By Editor - Mar. 08 (Editorial) - THE FOOD and Drug Administration has done far too little to avoid conflicts of interest among those who serve on its scientific panels and advisory boards. The latest example came last Monday, when the agency appointed to a tobacco advisory committee two scientists who have financial ties to companies that sell smoking cessation products.

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The refills ran out on these campaign prescriptions

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Washington Post Editorial - Dec. 15 (Editorial) - On the campaign trail, Barack Obama vowed to take on the drug industry by allowing Americans to import cheaper prescription medicine. "We'll tell the pharmaceutical companies 'thanks, but no, thanks' for the overpriced drugs -- drugs that cost twice as much here as they do in Europe and Canada," he said back then. On Tuesday, the matter came to the Senate floor -- and President Obama forgot the "no, thanks" part. Siding with the pharmaceutical lobby, the administration successfully fought against the very idea Obama had championed.

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Our Misplaced Faith in High-Tech Medicine

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Health Care Blog - By Merrill Goozner - Oct. 14 (Opinion) - The public religiously believes there will be a technological fix for the hundreds of diseases that may hit us as our bodies degenerate, and tithes accordingly. Any effort to limit prices for what must be paid for new technologies is met with cries from industry that it will stifle innovation. The taxpayers provide the seed corn for new technology by investing nearly $30 billion a year in basic research through the National Institutes of Health and other government health-related programs (this year supplemented with $10 billion in stimulus act funds).

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Pharma facts

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Greg Critser - Aug. 09 (Opinion) - With the pharmaceutical companies at the bargaining table on healthcare reform, and Congress considering new restrictions on drug advertising, it may pay to bone up on some facts about the industry with the following quiz:

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Why there are pathogens such as MRSA in our pork

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Times - By Nicholas D. Kristof - Mar. 25 (Opinion) - Five out of 90 samples of retail pork in Louisiana tested positive for MRSA — an antibiotic-resistant staph infection — according to a peer-reviewed study published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology last year. Regardless of whether the bacteria came from the pigs or from humans who handled the meat, the results should sound an alarm bell, for MRSA already kills more than 18,000 Americans annually, more than AIDS does.

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Brain-enhancing drugs work by focusing brain activity... for better or worse

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

ScienceBlogs.com - By Ed Yong - Apr. 19 (Opinion) - But for many people, taking a pill to sharpen your mental faculties - a so-called "cognitive enhancer" - is a much easier deal. A large number of prescription drugs can indeed give you a little mental boost, including amphetamine and methylphenidate (more familiarly known by its brand name Ritalin). Both the use and the range of such drugs are on the rise and they seem capable of stimulating debate just as readily as they do the brain.

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NIH getting serious about brain doping

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

ScienceBlogs.com - Apr. 02 (Opinion) - There have recently been several articles in the media about brain enhancers, so-called Nootropics, or "smart drugs". They have been abused by college students for many years now, but they are now seeping into other places where long periods of intense mental focus are required, including the scientific research labs.

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Travel pro Steves to challenge futile U.S. drug war

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Post Intelligencer - By Joel Connelly - Mar. 20 (Opinion) - AS HE TROOPS about Europe, with notebook and camera crew, guidebook author Rick Steves witnesses what the late historian Barbara Tuchman called "The March of Folly," the sites of wars and witch hunts waged by feckless rulers. Steves has come home with a mind to take on our leaders' folly, the federal government's enduring, woefully unsuccessful War on Drugs, and the battle front against marijuana. He would replace a strategy of locking people up with a policy designed to lessen harm. It's a lot like the "Four Pillars" approach to drug use adopted by Vancouver, B.C.: treatment, harm reduction, prevention and -- for profiteers of the business -- enforcement.

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Lipitors Pitchman Gets the Boot

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By No author listed - Feb. 27 (Editorial) - And while the commercials have Dr. Jarvik enthusing over Lipitor "as a doctor and a dad," he is actually an inventor and researcher. He has a medical degree, but did not go through residency training and is not licensed to practice medicine or prescribe drugs.

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